Examination Board: OCR Assessment:

40% – Computer Systems (Examination)

• The characteristics of contemporary processors, input, output and storage devices
• Software and software development
• Exchanging data
• Data types, data structures and algorithms
• Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues

40% – Algorithms (Examination)

• Elements of computational thinking
• Problem solving and programming
• Algorithms

20% – Programming Project

– The student chooses a computing problem to work through with teacher guidance, this involves:

• Analysis of the problem
• Design of the solution
• Developing the solution
• Evaluation

What kinds of students are most suited to the course?

Students should also have strong mathematical and problem-solving skills.

Students with a keen interest in computer systems, including software, hardware, data communications and people. Students will develop skills in writing programs, therefore the ability to think creatively and logically would be desirable.

What other courses combine successfully with this?

Many computing-related university courses will require students to have studied Computer Science and Mathematics / Further Mathematics. These subjects are complementary, and we would encourage students to take these two subjects alongside each other. Additional subjects which may also complement Computer Science are Physics and Philosophy.

What career or higher education options might this course lead to?

The course will prepare students for higher education in the area of Computing or Computer Science. It will also develop organisational and project management skills which would be applicable in a range of subject areas. Potential areas for future study and careers would include: programming, robotics, software and hardware design and development, networking, systems analysis, databases, consultancy, games and multimedia.

Extra-Curricular

Students need to have access to a computer or laptop, this should have an up to date version of Office on it, and must have Internet access. Students would also benefit from having the following software: Python and Visual Basic.