Computing

Faculty of Computing and Business

Staff

Mr J Brehony - Head of Faculty

Mrs K McGloin -Head of Computing

Mrs S Pitcher - Head of Business

Mr G Jones

Ethos

We are a team of specialist teachers dedicated to inspiring the new generation of computer developers through an innovative, dynamic curriculum that reflects and reacts to the ever changing digital world.

Aims

Our aims are to ensure our pupils are:

Equipped with the skills to be responsible and moral online citizens.
Competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.
Able to understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science
Able to analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems.

Progression

Students can progress to

A Level Computing and further study
Apprenticeships
Employment opportunities

KS3 Curriculum 2019-2020

Curriculum Intent

In Year 7 and 8 all students follow the KS3 National Curriculum.

Students receive 3 lessons per fortnight and are taught in mixed attainment groups.

KS3 students begin their study by learning how to stay safe online.

Through the content of the curriculum students are taught computational thinking, digital literacy and digital media technologies.

KS3

At the heart of our computing curriculum is online safety.

During years 7 and 8 pupils develop their knowledge and understanding of computing.

Students explore key concepts and processes and learn algorithms, pseudocode and flowcharts to help them plan logically and to problem solve.

Students are introduced to programming languages including Python and Scratch.

From this they are able to design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behaviour of real-world problems and physical systems with the skills they have learnt.

Students develop an understanding of the hardware and software required for computing and how they work.

KS4 Curriculum 2019-2020

Year 9

All pupils in Year 9 are given the opportunity to complete a Cambridge National qualification in Creative iMedia Level 1/2 that is the equivalent of a GCSE grade.

This course encompasses all the knowledge and understanding developed during Year 7 and 8, and transfers those skills to task based creative work.

Assessment

Pupils must complete 4 Units of work, two compulsory and two optional (selected from a list provided by the exam board). One of the compulsory units is assessed through a written examination (1 hour 15 mins) which is set and marked by the exam board. The remaining 3 Units are internally assessed and externally moderated.

Year 10 and Year 11

In Years 9,10 & 11 pupils who have opted for Computing will follow the OCR (9-1) GCSE in Computer Science

This course comprises of three units that must all be completed successfully.

Computer systems
Computational thinking, algorithms and programming
Programming Project (The Programming Project does not count towards a candidate’s final grade, but is a requirement of the course)