Using Excel to Teach Computational Thinking

I was recently asked to teach a unit on Excel in uppper KS2 and was initially quite concerned as to how this would fit within the new computing curriculum which is weighted heavily towards learning to code and understanding logic and algorithms.

Naace - Computing in the national curriculum A guide for primary teachers

As I started to plan and think more carefully about the various functions in Excel I was able to see how the lessons could be tailored to promote more computational thinking.  By teaching about inputting formulae to make various calculations children can learn the importance of sequence in programming and when they understand this sequence they can make predictions for inputting future formulae.  By extending the lessons to cover conditional formatting children can also learn the important of selection in programming, using 'if' and 'when' statements.

In the old ICT curriculum Excel was an important aspect of the program of study and it is clear that working with Excel can also cover part of the new curriculum, particularly when considering collecting, analysing, evaluating and presenting data.  With a little tweaking, previous Excel lessons plans can still be useful in the new computing curriculum, although I don't think that it covers enough to warrant a full half term of work.  Next year I plan to teach this as two three week blocks, one in year five learning the basics and a three week block of more independent work consolidating the children's knowledge in year six.