Learning objective
- To understand how binary is used to store different types of data.
Success criteria
- I can explain that binary stores many types
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National curriculum
Computing
Pupils should be taught to:
- Understand
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Cross-curricular links
Mathematics
Number – multiplication
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Before the lesson
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Lesson plan
Recap and recall
Explain that the children will be thinking back to what they learnt about computer architecture in the previous lesson. Display the Presentation: Explain the answer and read the statement aloud. Ask the children to discuss the statement with a partner and explain why it might be true, using what they remember about input, processing, output…
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Extended-mode explainer videos
How to extend your display to view the lesson page and preseantion mode simultaneously. Choose your operating system below to watch the video
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Extended-mode explainer video: For Mac
Extended-mode explainer video: For Windows
Adaptive teaching
Pupils needing extra support
- Could use the Resource: Data size cards: support version to order a reduced number of items by comparing one size at a time, reducing cognitive load while still meeting the success criteria.
- Could re-watch the link: Bytes in perspective to reinforce relative data sizes by using the visual comparison as a reference during sorting and discussion.
Pupils working at greater depth
- Should justify their data size choices using direct comparisons (for example, explaining why a video file needs more storage than a sound file) by referring to the amount and type of information stored.
- Could draw a labelled visual representation (for example, bars or scaled blocks) to show how a bit compares to a byte, kilobyte and megabyte.
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Assessing progress and understanding
Pupils with secure understanding indicated by: explaining that binary is used to
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Vocabulary definitions
-
bit
A single 0 or 1, which is the smallest piece of data a computer can store.
-
binary
A system computers use to store information using only 0 and 1.
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In this unit
Assessment - Computing Y5: Mars Rover 1
Lesson 1: Mars Rover
Lesson 2: Binary code
Lesson 3: Computer architecture
Lesson 4: How computers store data using binary
Lesson 5: Using binary - text
Maintained by: Kapow Primary team
Last update: 18th December, 2025
Contributors
Assessment – Computing Y5: Mars Rover 1
Assessment quiz and Knowledge catcher for use at the start and/or end of the unit...
Lesson 1: Mars Rover
Calculating the distance from Earth to Mars to help visualise how far information sent and...
Lesson 5: Using binary – text
Using binary with the computer language ASCII to represent alphabet characters to create messages.
Lesson 3: Computer architecture
Learning that the more Random Access Memory (RAM) the robot has, the more instructions it...
