Computing

Course Information

On this course pupils will study how computers work, how to write programs and how data are represented and handled by applications. Pupils will design and write programs in the Python programming language which was introduced at the end of Key Stage 3.

There are 3 components of the course. Components 1 and 2 are examined through written exams at the end of Year 11. Component 3 is a controlled assessment.

Component 1: Computer Systems

Introduces students to the Central Processing Unit (CPU), computer memory and storage, wired and wireless networks, network topologies, system security and system software. It also looks at ethical, legal, cultural and environmental concerns associated with computer science.

Component 2: Computational Thinking, Algorithms and Programming

Students apply knowledge and understanding gained in component 01. They develop skills and understanding in computational thinking: algorithms, programming techniques, producing robust programs, computational logic, translators and data representation. The skills and knowledge developed within this component will support the pupil when completing the programming project.

Component 3: Programming Project

Students use OCR assessment tasks to demonstrate their practical ability in the skills developed in components 01 and 02. In a controlled environment they will, define success criteria from a given problem, and then create suitable algorithms to achieve success criteria. Students then code their solutions in a suitable programming language, and check its functionality using a suitable and documented test plan. Students have a total of 20 hours to complete their programming project.

We follow the OCR Computer Science specification. This can be found here:

OCR GCSE Computer Science Specification

Computing Staff