COMPUTER SCIENCE
Aims The study of Computer Science ranges from the creative to the mathematical, making sense of the technology which is fundamental to life in the 21st Century. A GCSE in Computer Science is engaging and practical, encouraging creativity and problem solving. Students will develop their understanding and application of the core concepts of the subject, including abstraction, decomposition, logic, algorithms and data representation. Students analyse problems in computational terms through practical experience of solving such problems, including designing, writing and debugging programs. They will think creatively, innovatively, analytically, logically and critically. They will understand the components that make up digital systems and how they communicate with one another and with other systems.
Content and Structure Students will use creative and practical approaches to explore computer systems and computational thinking, algorithms and programming. The course will relate directly to many layers of the technical world around the students, from image processing to network protocols, the world wide web and encryption. Theoretical aspects such as systems architecture, storage, networks, security, software and the impacts of digital technology will be covered, in addition to the fundamentals of algorithms and robust programming using Python. Students will cover the underlying Boolean logic and explore different languages and the Integrated Development Environment.
Methods of Assessment While the course requires that students have the opportunity to program and the course will be taught largely practically, it will be assessed as two written papers with no practical assessment. Programming will be assessed as part of paper two, in the form of pseudocode or a high-level programming language.
58 THE MIDDLE SCHOOL | AT SEVENOAKS