Department Staff
The Computer Studies team comprises:
Mr Sam Wickins (Head of Department)
Mr Matt Whitworth
What do students study?
In Key Stage 4, students study GCSE Computing (OCR Exam Board)
This course is for students with a keen interest in finding out how computers work. They will be investigating how computer hardware operates and study how software is written through practical programming lessons. Computing is a challenging subject to study and we dive quickly into the technical workings of computer technology and programming. Students should be driven, enthusiastic, have a good work ethic and fairly good mathematical skills as this will generally enable them to understand the logic required for programming.
Content includes the following:
How are students assessed?
The examination board is OCR.
There are three units and each has its own assessment:
The Computer Studies team comprises:
Mr Sam Wickins (Head of Department)
Mr Matt Whitworth
What do students study?
In Key Stage 4, students study GCSE Computing (OCR Exam Board)
This course is for students with a keen interest in finding out how computers work. They will be investigating how computer hardware operates and study how software is written through practical programming lessons. Computing is a challenging subject to study and we dive quickly into the technical workings of computer technology and programming. Students should be driven, enthusiastic, have a good work ethic and fairly good mathematical skills as this will generally enable them to understand the logic required for programming.
Content includes the following:
- Fundamentals of Computer Systems
- Computer Hardware
- Software
- Representation of Data in Computer Systems
- Databases
- Computer Communications and Networking
- Programming Theory / Practice (Python v3 is our chosen language)
How are students assessed?
The examination board is OCR.
There are three units and each has its own assessment:
- Unit 1: Computer Systems and Programming 90 minute written examination paper (40% of final mark).
- Unit 2: Programming Project Controlled assessment of approximately 20 hours (30% of final mark). Students will be given three programming tasks (directed by the exam board) which will require them to put to use their programming knowledge, logical thinking and problem solving skills to solve several tasks. In the past, students have been asked to write calculators, a recipe program and a hangman game.
- Unit 3: Practical Investigation Controlled assessment of approximately 20 hours (30% of final mark). Students will be given a task (directed by the exam board) which requires them to investigate an area of the theory unit in depth. In the past, students have been asked to investigate the web languages of HTML and JavaScript in the creation of webforms
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