GCSE Computer Science, but no teacher

Thank you RolyRocks and hope all works put for your DD Coldandalone

3muses For the theory then, CraignDave is perfect for him but for the coursework, I’d recommend he looks at the example write-ups on the OCR exam board page and makes sure his write up is detailed. I found last year that the project helped my students up a whole grade (or in the case of two who didn’t bother, down a whole grade!)

Coldandalone the other thing that DS did was create a skype or some kind of group with friends and they all did python and programming together which he said was really helpful. I suggested it to DD for GCSE although she thinks it will be harder for her to do as in her words she doesn't have enough "geeky friends"

RolyRocks it's OCR. He is motivated, just finds lessons very uninspiring and claims teachers get stuff wrong a lot of the time. He had an amazing teacher in year 10 who left and he has been ruing the day ever since . He want to do CS at uni and is trying to decide what areas he is most interested in.

That’s such a shame you are also dealing with that cricketballs. The general feeling of CAS and the CS Facebook groups is full of existing teachers not getting enough support to upskill and instead all the government funding going towards excessively training new staff on initiatives such as the BCS scholarship funding of upwards of £25,000 etc but few jobs for them to actually take up once qualified! It’s heartbreaking to watch excellent NQTs struggle to find a permanent position in a school that offers the subject and in turn, seeing non-specialist staff struggling to teach the course. Maybe the new £84mil budget will be spent wisely but I don’t hold out much hope! 2 jobs came up on one of the facebook groups today, actually and I wonder if it is one of them is the OP’s school!?

RolyRocks I'm in the Midlands and it's not a case of traditional IT teachers not skilled up, we just have a very significant lack of anybody breathing available!

Our school in the South East had a non qualified teacher - stand in - best they could do. Dh and I were glad our dcs chose not to study CS because we couldn't help them (neither of us studied it) and getting tutors for science and maths around here is hard enough -
CS is almost impossible. Mind you I had some really shit teachers in school and I managed to find the necessary info from the spec and a textbook.

Hi 3Muses, is your DS doing AQA or OCR at A Level?

RolyRocks I have forwarded the craigndave stuff to DS who is in year 12. Any other suggestions for A-Level? Also given it to DD year 10, so thanks.

That and the scarily large numbers of schools completely dropping the subject completely in the last year, causing fewer jobs to come up even more so.

South East cricketballs. Part of the problem seems to stem from those teachers who were historically solely ICT based and have so far, if they hadn’t left the profession quickly after the CS changes, been staying put and therefore, positions haven’t come up as frequently as they used to, as the movement between schools is not as prevalent. Still means there is a ‘shortage’ of specifically trained CS teachers actually in job positions but there is a surplus of newly trained CS teachers without jobs to go to-most of the ones on TES are always abroad.

Each subject has different shortage needs and for CS, they have spent huge amounts of money training CS teachers up and there are currently more people that have recently trained than there are jobs. My last two PGCE trainees are still without a job so would jump at the chance at the OP’s school if it’s one near them, for example

Where are you based?? I know First Teach could only recruit 2 CS this year (our Teach First CS trainee was really good but as soon as he completed his NQT year he's left teaching completely), and despite us being based close to 5 PGCE providers there's been no luck there either

and they're being constantly poached by private schools.

It’s been my experience that a lot of private schools, at least in the South East, don’t even offer it-I’d love to go private, ha ha!

I was actually hoping for some more positive responses about resources we could use at home

I am a CS teacher and the resources I mentioned were in all seriousness and they are the best out there for your DD. Happy to help give further advice on specific topics, if you like?

kazzyhoward Each subject has different shortage needs and for CS, they have spent huge amounts of money training CS teachers up and there are currently more people that have recently trained than there are jobs. My last two PGCE trainees are still without a job so would jump at the chance at the OP’s school if it’s one near them, for example.

I did say upthread it was poor management in schools. Rules is a symptom of this.

Op: if your dd likes the idea of self study, then fine. My bright DD sparked off others. This was part of how she learnt. That’s why children tend to enjoy school. If your DD is happy to go it alone, give it a try but it could be a real slog. Unless you can help her of course.

Holiday courses.

Tutor - either online, or do you have a local uni with CS under / post grads needing some cash. Ditto holiday tutors. Ditto math under/post grads.

Look up any Raspberry Pi type clubs locally. You might find help / tutor from wider coding community.

Won't necessarily help with the gcse but see what www.stemettes.org have got going on in your area, to help keep her enthusiasm up. Good luck to her and you!

My DS used the science CGP books for his GCSEs last year. They were very good, but I'm not sure they would have been enough on their own.

It's probably the kind of subject she could teach herself, to be honest, if she's reasonably bright and enthusiastic. There are good revision guides and plenty of online resources.

I would try to arrange a meeting with the school as a first step. Maybe see whether the teacher can leave resources that she could go through herself.

Another obvious option is to get a tutor, if you can afford it. Even if it's someone who she can just bounce questions off. Possibly approaching your local university would yield a student who'd like some extra cash?

Teaching herself, with someone to answer questions, might well be the best way to learn.

Is GCSE BITESIZE any good? Or youtube tutorials?

We have the GCSE OCR CS revision guide by CGP.

I am assuming that this is the actual course your DD is studying? All the boards set different exams with different content so it is important that this is correct.
Does your DD have a text book?

I think that schools struggle to recruit decent Computer Science teachers. DS had an ICT teacher in year 11 who just didn't teach them as according to him she had no understanding of the course and when I went to a parents' evening she didn't know who he was.

He predominantly used the CGP OCR revision book that you mention and to a lesser extent his text book OCR GCSE (9-1) Computer Science Paperback – 15 Jun 2016 by S Robson. He also did free Python stuff online. He ended up with a 9. He is equally unimpressed with his A-Level teachers. Good luck!

It's not 'rules' that turn people off to teaching in my experience, it's lack of support, lack of time, crazy expectations and having targets based on the performance of teenagers. Disrespect from parents and slt, when you're absolutely working your guts off for 60+ hours a week doesn't help you feel like you're doing a worthwhile job. It's a demoralising profession - you have to be resilient as hell and aren't allowed to have bad days (basically you can't be human). At least, those are the things that drove me from teaching after 7 years, along with a fair few colleagues along the way.

Oh and spurious and instantaneous curriculum changes didn't help!!!