GCSE Computing – The Teacher’s Unofficial Guide This guide, which supports the OCR GCSE, covers how to teach the course. Separate sections look at: • Written examination • Practical investigation • Programming project It is not officially linked to the exam board, but they have ‘adopted’ it as their official,...

Help encourage your child's STEM skills, passion and talent with this parents' guide to engineering careers.

This activity is designed to build on understanding of programming commands and what they are used to do in a program. It requires learners to show a...

This handy guide sheet shows how the format () method can be used in a variety of situations: • Inserting values into strings, • Formatting layout and alignment, • Displaying numbers with specific formats A print-out-and-keep quick guide shows all the options available when using the format ‘mini-language’.

For students with some prior experience of using simple For and While loops, this intermediate-level resource explores how they can be used for more complex coding while maintaining efficiency.

Exercises include arithmetic applications of While loops, and development of simple For loops to be usable in more...

This intermediate-level resource for those learning to program with Python 3.x looks at conditional statements including ELSE and ELIF. The use of arithmetic and logical operators is covered, along with tricks and tips for more efficient and fault-free code.

An explanation of how different data values and...

This intermediate-level resource for those learning to program with Python 3.x looks at lists (called arrays in other languages), strings and tuples. It covers the main features of these sequences, including the differences between them, how the elements of each are referenced, and some of the functions and...

Produced in 2015, these resources look at the development of encoding messages and how technology and science has developed to allow us to keep messages secure. Looking at unintuitive quantum properties of light, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal and entanglement, students will see how keys can be shared to ensure...

This activity is a space-themed coding project for learners, combining six to ten hours of STEM linked learning. These lessons use Scratch game creation to explore space and interplanetary missions.

This Barefoot Computing resource for upper-primary computing lessons uses the creation of a Scratch maths quiz as a basis for learning about algorithms using selection.

Children are asked to create an algorithm that...

This Barefoot Computing resource builds on the ‘Maths quiz with selection’ learning activities which should be undertaken first.

It involves improving an existing Scratch maths quiz and adding score-keeping using...

This resource consists of eleven worksheets explaining how to use some basic commands in the programming language Scratch. Each sheet explains how the appropriate blocks are set up in Scratch, an example of their use and a number of exercises for use in the classroom. The commands covered are: • IF uses a variable...

This collection of twelve Scratch cards is designed to provide a quick way to learn how to code using the language Scratch. The front of the card describes to the students what can be done; the back explains how to do it. Each card can be printed and folded to A5 size for use with students. The activities cover how...

This one-page help sheet offers a comprehensive introductory guide to Scratch, great for teachers new to the platform, or those who are unfamiliar with some of its features.