KBA > Secondary > Curriculum > ICT and Computing

Department Leader: Mairead Wall

In ICT students are given a real understanding of their digital environment, develop key skills and prepare them for their future use of IT in their chosen careers across a wide range of job roles. It also covers how they can safely interact with IT at work, home and in study. The qualification is about applying understanding and skills to use technologies to select data, manipulate, store, analyse and present it as information, and follow a project life cycle to structure how it’s done.

At Key Stage 4, Computing is concerned with how computers and computer systems work, and how they are designed and programmed. Pupils will gain an understanding of computational systems of all kinds, whether or not they include computers.

Key Stage 3

Year 8

Web development
- Planning
- Building
- Evaluating
Presentation Software
- Planning
- Building
- Evaluating
Internet Safety
Project Life Cycle Theory
Spreadsheets
Databases

Year 9

Project Life Cycle
- Phases of the Project Life Cycle
- Inputs and outputs of each phase
- Initial product considerations
- Planning tools to develop project plans
- Spreadsheets
- Databases

Key Stage 4

Cambridge Nationals in Information Technologies (OCR J808)

This is a vocationally-related qualification that takes an engaging, practical and inspiring approach to learning and assessment. Given that the everyday use of ICT, from PCs to smartphones, now impacts all of our lives, the Cambridge Nationals in ICT provides students with a solid understanding of the subject which they can use in their working lives.

R012 – Written exam, 1 hour 45 minutes, worth 50%.
R013 – Externally moderated coursework, approximately 20 hours, worth 50%.

Computer Science (OCR J276)

This qualification teaches about the modern and changing world of computer science. Computer Science is a practical subject where learners can apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to real-world problems. It is an intensely creative subject that involves invention and will value computational thinking, helping learners to develop the skills to solve problems and design systems that do so.