Mission Statement

Within the Computer Science department we aim to deliver a computing education that will equip students to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing has deep links with other subjects, such as, mathematics, science, and design and technology, and provides insights into both natural and artificial systems. The core of computing is computer science, in which students will be taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work, and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. Building on this knowledge and understanding, students are also equipped to use information technology to create programs, systems and a range of content. Computing also ensures that students will become digitally literate – able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through, information technology.

Years 7-9

Students have one lesson per week, where they will start to build the knowledge and skills required for the IGCSE. At the start of each year they will look at Internet Safety to ensure they are keeping up to date with how to stay safe while using the Internet. In Year 7 they will start to look at topics such as data representation, physical computing through Micro:bit’s, programming concepts within Python programming and robotics.

In Year 8 they will cover topics that will introduce them to the components of a computer, physical computing through the use of Makey Makey boards, further programming, encryption and game making.

In Year 9 they will look at more complex elements of robotics, mobile app creation, logic gates, more advanced game making and databases.

GCSE

In Year 10 we will start on the IGCSE in Computer Science. They will have two lessons a week in Year 10 and three lessons during Year 11.

They will follow the CIE IGCSE Computer Science 0984 syllabus. The course is examined at the end of Year 11, where they will sit two papers. Paper 1 will cover the theory topics of the course: Data representation, communication and internet technologies, hardware and software, security and ethics. Paper 2 covers the problem solving programming aspects of the course: Algorithms and problem solving, programming and databases. Girls will also be expected to complete a pre-release task within Year 11 and will be examined on it within Paper 2.