Faculty Leader
Mrs J Preston – Head of Faculty Technology & Enterprise
Staff
Mr R Bell – Teacher of Computing
Curriculum
Computing is an ever evolving subject area that aims to provide our young people with skills for the digital world. Across Key Stage 3 students will engage in both the design and use of computer programs to acquire a broad and balanced skill set. Following studies at Key Stage 3 and 4, students can access a wide range of related progression opportunities in further education.
Key Stage 3
Year 7 & 8
A creative theme is applied to quickly engage our leaners in the curriculum. Key Stage 3 features both written (Python) and visual (Scratch) programming units and Micro:bits which are small programmable computers.
Students study E-Safety, computer hardware, networks, binary, data representation and web page design using HTML and CSS. ICT projects using Microsoft Office, and the Adobe CS6 Suite give students the chance to enhance their ICT skills in preparation for Key Stage 4. Throughout Key Stage 3, the department maintains a strong ‘e’ safety theme to ensure that students become safe and responsible users of ICT.
Key Stage 4
Subject specification: OCR Computing GCSE
For further information please click the link. OCR GCSE Computing
Years 9, 10 & 11
The OCR Computing GCSE gives students an excellent opportunity to investigate how computers work and how they are used, and to develop computer programming and problem-solving skills. The course will help you learn about critical thinking, analysis and problem solving.
The GCSE is split into three sections:
The Computer Systems and Programming units will teach students the theory about a wide range of issues such as hardware and software, the representation of data in computer systems, computer communications and networking, programming, algorithms as well as social and ethical issues and more. Each of these units has an exam at the end of Year 11 of 1 hour 30 minutes which makes up 80% of the assessment of the course.
The Programming Project will teach students to design, code and test and evaluate a solution to a given task using suitable programming languages. This unit is the Non Examined Assessment (NEA) part of the course and is worth 20%. It is undertaken at the beginning of Year 11.
Extra-Curricular Activities
Lunchtime access to ICT suites is available for students.
The department runs after school coursework support twice weekly to support Key Stage4 students with coursework
Useful Links & Resources
