Computer Science

The Langton Computer Science Curriculum has been designed to allow all students to become better creators and consumers of digital technologies. All students should be able to:

• understand how technology works and be capable of creating their own digital tools.
• be able to critically assess and speak about the digital tools and technology they use and create.
• be able to use technology to develop creative solutions that can address challenges they personally face, or issues affecting their community and the world around them.

The curriculum has been designed specifically to cater for the changes in subject knowledge as well as the following softer skills needed to meet the needs of our times:

• Discovery – to approach problems with curiosity and a sense of discovery.
• Critical Thinking – to develop better mental models of what computers can and cannot do.
• Perseverance – to become more comfortable with taking risks, making and accepting mistakes, and learning through experience.
• Creative Problem Solving – to explore their creativity and think outside the box.
• Collaboration – to work in teams and to collaborate with others outside their team.
• Citizenship – understand the ways in which technology can positively impact society.

To enable all students to learn a wide set of skills and competencies to harness the power of digital technologies, as both creators and consumers, the curriculum has been split into 5 key areas of focus.

• Programming
• Computing and Networks
• Data
• Technology and Society
• Design

At the same time as developing their subject knowledge the students will develop their attitudes and study skills specific to Computer Science.

Each module has been designed around the answering of key fertile questions. This encourages the students to be more inquisitive and confident in looking at the outside world and trying to understand how the technology works, is programmed and its effect on society. The students use a digital workbook , which has been designed by the department so that it caters for the specific needs of the students. This workbook works in conjunction with a module improvement book , which is paper based, and concentrates on improving the students’ subject knowledge, study skills and attitude to learning.

At the end of Key Stage 3, the students should have developed a set of computational thinking skills that can be used to solve an open or structured problem. The students should have a questioning mind in relation to how their data is collected, processed and stored. Also they should be able to have an informed and practical knowledge of how to control their data, especially in relation to cybersecurity. The student’s should start to consider their areas of interest within the subject and develop skills in all focus areas to allow them to make positive contributions in solving a problem in a team. They should be able to answer some of the fertile questions and develop their skills in writinganswers to HPQ type questions. The majority of the Key Stage 3 positive learning behaviours and attitudes should be part of their natural learning profile.

Extra curricular activities 

The department also organises a successful Vex Robotics Club, which caters for nearly 100 students in the school. In Year 7, the students can attend an after school club to develop their engineering skills. They can then join 8 Year 8 and 9 Vex IQ competition teams which attend events all over the South East, as well as the National Finals in Telford and the World Finals in Dallas. These students are then able to progress into Vex V5 teams. This means that students can develop their engineering  and programming skills in a competitive environment from Year 8 right up to Year 13. A number of senior team members are now studying Computer Science, Aeronautical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at University.

Key Stage Four

In the last 50 years of the twentieth century, society saw a cultural shift away from manual work to more white-collar occupations. With the development of intelligent software it is likely we are to see many of these careers disappearing and the emergence of ones that require a person to analyse complex problems, plan and implement the programs to solve them.

Computer Science offers the student the opportunity to take the abstractions of Mathematics and bring them to life, to consider the large amounts of data created by the Science subjects, Geography, Sport and Finance and give them a meaning as well as the ability to develop a society changing product. As well as providing an excellent preparation for higher study and employment in the field of Computer Science, it will be excellent preparation for students who want to study or work in areas that rely on these thinking skills, especially where they are applied to technical problems.

This course has been developed to enable the student to learn how to look at a given scenario, to consider the issues appropriately and construct a solution that is well thought out and robust. It will give students a real in-depth understanding of how computer technology works. Students will no doubt be familiar with the use of computers and other related technology from their other subjects and elsewhere. Students who have taken a GCSE in Computer Science and who then progress to study the subject at A Level or university will have an advantage over their colleagues who are picking up the subject at these levels.

Due to the students studying Computer Science since Year 7, they have already had experience of 90% of the programming techniques specified in the GCSE syllabus. To allow the students to have a well-rounded understanding of the subject, the students study their new programming language, Python, using practical computing techniques. The department has designed the course so that the student has as many opportunities as possible to use their new theoretical knowledge in a practical situation.

Computer Science at KS5

Computer Science is a subject that impacts on our daily lives and has transformed society in the last 60 years. However very few people truly understand how this has happened.

The department offers a course that is an ideal complement qualification for students who wish to go on to higher education courses or employment where knowledge of Computing would be beneficial.

With its emphasis on general problem solving, algorithmic reasoning, scientific and engineering-based thinking, it is a good foundation for further study and offers students the opportunity to work in many of the projects being offered by the school. Also it gives you the chance to think about your future career from a more technological and data-driven perspective.

In Year 12, the students cover the syllabus in a very practical manner, which allows them many more opportunities to develop their understanding of the subject. This approach means that they are able to create a piece of coursework in Year 13, which is innovative and exciting to develop.

The course is not about learning to use tools or just training in a programming language. Instead the emphasis is on computational thinking. Computational thinking is a kind of reasoning used by both humans and machines. Thinking computationally is an important life skill. The study of computation is about what can be computed and how to compute it.

Summary of the AQA A level Computer Science Course

Paper 1

• 40 % of A Level
• 2.5 hours onscreen practical examination.
• Skeleton program is given to student before the examination, which is used to answer short questions and to write a program in the examination.

Paper 2

• 40 % of A Level
• 2.5 hours written examination.
• Compulsory short-answer and extended-answer questions.

Non- exam assessment

• 20 % of A Level
• The non-exam assessment assesses students’ ability to use the knowledge and skills gained through the course to solve or investigate a practical problem.