Computing

Aims of the course

The year 9 Computing course is designed to introduce and build upon knowledge of some of the core fundamental concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation. Students will have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve problems, and will evaluate and apply information technology, including unfamiliar technologies, analytically to solve such problems. Throughout Key Stage 3 we aim to develop our students into responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.

Students will study the following topics:

l Computer Science Fundamentals

This unit of work takes an introductory look at some of the core building blocks of computer science. It serves as the taster course for GCSE Computer Science. Students will learn about the functions of computer hardware and software, both internal and external. They will look at binary representations of data and understand how everything inside a computer can ultimately be represented using sequences of 0s and 1s. The concept of Boolean logic will be introduced and students will learn to create truth tables for logic gates. Computer networking and the internet will be included as well as an introduction to basic processing architecture. The key guiding principle is that of ‘how does that work?’ The varied answer to that question is what makes computer science such an exciting subject to study.

l Powerful Processing

In this unit students will get a chance to improve their programming skills in a graphical environment provided by the processing software. This heightens interest and raises achievement for all students to see instant graphical results when running their code. Students will learn how to draw basic shapes as well as create animation and master keyboard and mouse interaction. The key programming constructs of sequence, selection and repetition will be reinforced and computational thinking techniques will be used throughout. Students will work through part of an online programming course on Khan Academy as well as working directly with the Processing IDE to run their programs, picking up elements of Java and JavaScript syntax as they go.

l Spicy Spreadsheets

Students will revisit spreadsheets, learning the skills of creating formulae to work with numbers and the importance of layout and formatting. Built-in Spreadsheet functions will be introduced to highlight the power and versatility and more able students will learn to create macros and manipulate them using VBA. Charting skills will also be emphasised as will working with large data sets. Being able to use a spreadsheet is an essential skill for any student to learn and will be applicable throughout their school career in a variety of cross-curricular situations.

Assessment

Students will receive regular fortnightly homework assignments that will be assessed. They will also receive feedback for each piece of submitted work. The main assessed piece of project work will be the technology presentation. There will be one assessed project during the first two terms and an exam for all Year 9 students during the third term.

There will also be regular quizzes and tests throughout the year to test students’ understanding. Use will be made of online coding platforms such as Code Academy and Khan Academy which track student progress through a series of tasks and activities, and provides useful feedback on individual student performance.