My name's Karen McCathie and I'm Head of Department at Churcher's
College in Hampshire for Computer Science and ICT, and I'm also
Head of the Technology Faculty.
I think that Computer Science is very much a wide spread of skills
that you have right from day one in Year 10. Some who're really
already well read in Computer Science and enjoy the subject
and have delved into one area of Computer Science and you get
others who were just doing it ... oh, I think I might try it ... it
might be OK, I don't know much
about it. You get a really wide spectrum. So what I look for in
resources is something to support people who know nothing, people
who really need a stretch and challenge but still
obviously stick to what they need to know for the curriculum.
So I want obviously comprehensive coverage of this
curriculum, but resources that I can throw at students to support
them if they need to go over
things. And resources I can give students to extend them. So that's
what I really really look for.
I'm very pleased with that. In fact, I wrote to Craig and Dave
and gave them a big sums up to say, 'Yay, you're supporting
Edexcel in the new curriculum', because I really like that
they map fantastically to the specification, and they give
videos that support that flipped learning idea, and I really like
that resource. So I was very pleased to see Craig and Dave on
there. EG online I've also used for A-Level before and I like
the fact that they provide comprehensive worksheets, assessment, homework
sheets they are already made out of the box.
And slides that, if you like, summarisetopics that student
can use again for revision. So I've used PG Online, so I was
really please to see that they also are supporting the
Edexcel. Then I know Paul Long already quite well, so he's
already published a few things of mapping from old
specifications, of Edexcel, but also from other
specifications. From OCR from AQA to the newer Edexcel one. So
that's really useful to be able to pull in your own existing
resources and map them too.
Or you can utilise again in the in the new curriculum. And I
I quite enjoyed the fact that selected things from the
Microsoft MakeCode because I think you still have to keep a
lot of fun in the course. I mean you work up in the three
years prior to GCSE in secondary school, getting enthusiasm,
going using lots of fun
resources. And quite often you can get stuck in just teaching
to the specification, and those MakeCode things just, I thought, great,
you know there's some things we can put in there
to have some funds that will really engage everybody so that
that excited me to see that.
And one key one I really like because with the practical side
with the Python bitesized one that was done by
John Philip Jones.
I liked all those videos for teaching the code and the way he's
got much more in that site than just for the GCSE, so
that addresses where I want to stretch and challenge some
students in areas that maybe some really able students I
might put to class, you know, do using objects in classes
which that's not on the
specification, but I could very easily see that some
will will enjoy the going even further in their time that's
allowed for others. So I really liked that there was lots
to delve into in his site.