Students will need to be given various aspects of both secondary storage devices and what is expected of them in terms of creating the top trumps themselves. As background to the task the teacher needs to start by explaining the three main types of secondary storage magnetic, optical and solid state.

After...

This is a set of resources for students aged between 11 and 13, focusing on the internal components of a computer. The main presentation introduces the topic and contains links to external resources. Students are challenged to create storyboards and short stories to retell how the components work together. The...

It is a valuable experience for students to experience coding in a variety of languages. This worksheet introduces the functional paradigm and compares functional coding in Python and Haskell. The resource is a useful introduction to the Haskell language.

In this activity SEND pupils will learn to follow instructions, to create an algorithm for people to follow, to debug an algorithm and to use repetition in a sequence of instructions. Pupils will create a set of instructions to sing the well-known song ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’.

In this challenge, students are asked to consider the impact of people suffering from heart conditions, both to the individual and to wider society. They then generate ideas for using programmable systems to improve people’s health, and to monitor themselves. A video introduces the idea of a heart rate monitor, and...

Hello Ruby consists of a catalogue of unplugged activities for pupils to learn about computing and coding without devices. These STEM activities include computational thinking concepts such as decomposition, pattern recognition, thinking algorithmically and debugging problems.

This presentation, from Paul Curzon at QMUL, uses a folded paper geometric shape called a hexahexaflexagon to teach about abstraction, data representation and graph data structures, while encouraging computational thinking. A video (linked from within the presentation) shows how to make one of the geometrical...

Combine Egyptian Hieroglyphics with the teaching of pixels and digital images in computing, with this colour by Egyptian hieroglyph pixel puzzle.

'High-tech science' is a series of books that look at the revolutionary, cutting-edge science that we rely on to run our lives and keep our modern world working.

This classroom resource for secondary computing lessons outlines the history of development of computers. It covers thousands of years of history, including:

• the abacus
• log tables
• the calculators of Pascal and Leibnitz
• Jacquard looms
• Babbage's Difference Engine and...

Supercomputers represent the pinnacle of computer performance. This resource from the University of York provides a fascinating history for students and will consolidate the key concepts that they have learned about high-performance computer architecture.

Students first evaluate existing alarm systems and learn about a burglar’s attitude towards them using a video featuring reformed criminals. They are then briefed to create a working door access and alarm system using a BBC micro:bit and selected input and output components such as LDRs, reed switches, buzzers and...

Reducing energy usage in the home saves money, increases energy security and reduces the need to burn unsustainable fossil fuels. The first step in doing this is monitoring how much energy is...

In this activity SEND pupils will learn to spot and reuse patterns to support their understanding of the Computing curriculum as they develop their computational thinking. Pupils will identify similarities between different houses and use them to create their own house.