Confidence
KS3- Highly organised folders showcasing work completed over six themed units addressing the Computing Progression Pathways. Each unit of work is then followed by a revision lesson to reflect and refocus before the assessment. Students follow the assessment swirl lesson-by-lesson to record new knowledge or make a note of challenges and obstacles they were faced with or overcome.
Lessons target knowledge, skills and application.
We teach Computational Thinking skills to develop resilient learners:
- Define the problem so that it can be solved computationally
- Collect and organise data systematically
- Represent data and identify abstractions
- Generalise problems to identify algorithms
- Implement algorithms correctly and efficiently
- Solve new problems with the same technique
Skills such as literacy and numeracy are always applied within the themed units. Students use the 15 minutes of silence each lesson to demonstrate their resilience and Computational Thinking skills.
Pupils have individualised targets based on their CATS scores which are reviewed termly and tracked. Students reflect and act upon PINS feedback at the end of each unit.
KS4- we follow the OCR GCSE Computer Science specification. Students adopt a flipped learning approach and document their learning in the form of a blog(Weebly). This blog is viewable on any internet enabled device be it on a small screen or a large screen device. Students are engaged and are able to learn independently from the very first minute of the lesson due to rich video content. Students are tested frequently at the end of each topic. Their performance is analysed question by question on our analysis spreadsheet to inform intervention, ascertain levels of progress and inform next steps. Reflective practice is completed at the end of each session to develop oracy and written aspects with key vocabulary. Students also engage with ‘5-a-day’ where they answer five different exam questions from the specification to help consolidate learning and to aid the revision process. Upon completing all 50 of the ‘5’a’day’ sheets the students will have covered examination questions from the entire specification. This process helps prepare students for external the examinations.
KS5- each of the three units are covered separately with an emphasis on understanding the demands of the examination and the style of writing required to succeed. The NEA requires an individual project chosen by the student to work through according to the guidance in the specification. We focus on encouraging:
- emphasis on problem solving using computers
- emphasis on computer programming and algorithms
- emphasis on the mathematical skills used to express computational laws and processes, e.g. Boolean algebra/logic and comparison of the complexity of algorithms
- less emphasis on ICT.
At KS5 students also engage with ‘3-a-day’ where they answer five different exam questions from the specification to help consolidate learning and to aid the revision process. Upon completing all 50 of the ‘3’a’day’ sheets the students will have covered examination questions from the entire specification. This process helps prepare students for the external examinations. With a clear focus on exam performance students continue to work through revision work books and practice papers to get themselves exam ready.
Component 3 allows students further opportunities to apply their practical programming skills in the form of a programming project solving real life problems for an existing client.
