The department intent is for students to embrace the use of technology as a part of their everyday lives. We aim to create learners who are skilled in different types of software applications which allows them to express themselves artistically.
Pupils are exposed to problem solving; learn skills that underpin other subjects whilst always being aware of technology in the world around them.
We promote a love of technology and build pupils’ confidence, ability, and skills for whole life.
Pupils get 1 hour per week in year KS3. All pupils are taught by the curriculum leader, Mr Cookson.
Pupils will cover the following topics:
- MS PowerPoint presentations.
- Scratch game programming.
- Website creations using Serif Web Plus.
- Photo comic creation using Comic Life.
- Python programming.
- Databases using MS Access.
- The use of binary, hexadecimal, and denary number systems.
- Microbit programming.
- Control systems using Flowol.
- Turtle programming in IDLE.
- Animations using Pivot animator.
- Movie creation using MS Clipchamp.
- Spreadsheets using MS Excel.
- E-safety.
At St Bede’s all students follow the Edexcel GSCE scheme of work.
Paper 1: Principles of Computer Science
Written examination: 1 hour and 30 minutes 50% of the qualification 75 marks
- Topic 1: Computational thinking – understanding of what algorithms are, what they are used for and how they work; ability to follow, amend and write algorithms; ability to construct truth tables.
- Topic 2: Data – understanding of binary, data representation, data storage and compression.
- Topic 3: Computers – understanding of hardware and software components of computer systems and characteristics of programming languages.
- Topic 4: Networks – understanding of computer networks and network security.
- Topic 5: Issues and impact – awareness of emerging trends in computing technologies, and the impact of computing on individuals, society and the environment, including ethical, legal and ownership issues.
Assessment overview This paper consists of five compulsory questions, each one focused on one of the topic areas. The questions consist of multiple-choice, short-, medium- and extended-openresponse, tabular and diagrammatic items.
Paper 2: Application of Computational Thinking (*Paper code: 1CP2/02)
Onscreen examination: 2 hours 50% of the qualification 75 marks
- Understanding what algorithms are, what they are used for and how they work in relation to creating programs.
- Understanding how to decompose and analyse problems.
- Ability to read, write, refine and evaluate programs.
Assessment overview This practical paper requires students to design, write, test and refine programs in order to solve problems.
Pupils actively participate in lessons and make informed choices when accessing information so that they are aware of their own and other people’s rights and responsibilities. They learn about how technology makes positive and negative contributions to society, the environment and citizens. Pupils are free to express themselves and lessons are a safe space where they can all feel comfortable to make contributions. We encourage pupils to take pride in their work and to be helpful to other pupils who are struggling.
Growth Mindset – pupils will need to learn to grow as their IT skills require them to think in a different way. They may arrive at St. Bede’s having not used lots of the technologies they will be exposed to in Computer Science lessons. This will require an open growth mindset attitude.
Resilience – there are opportunities to demonstrate resilience in all lessons as there are often programs that don’t work and require careful debugging. This can test a pupil’s resilience as it is often not easy to find what is wrong and it can take multiple attempts and even then, they may not succeed.
Independence – lots of the topics and tasks that pupils will complete in Computer Science will need a level of independence. In most topics pupils are expected to work through tasks following instructions. They are encouraged to only ask for teacher intervention when they have exhausted other options such as looking up on-line or asking pupils around them.
Tenacity – this is really important in Computer Science as the level of difficulty often requires pupils to problem solve by taking stock of a situation and perhaps think of a new approach.
Transformational – pupils are encouraged to develop hidden talents using software that they may have not used before, be responsible with technology and be aware of their actions and how they could affect others.
Your World – pupils will be exposed to how technology shapes the world. They will see how things like social media have had a massive impact on society and relationships in the last few years.
Pupils can take many of the applications they have been exposed to in their lessons and download them for free. This allows them to try out their own ideas and improve their digital literacy.
