GCSE computer science - how do DCs feel about the syllabus?

I taught CS. It's soul destroying. It's the same with any exam though tbh. It's as though exam boards try to make courses as tedious as possible. Utterly joyless.

I have left teaching it's no fun for teachers or students

The theory (maths) is fascinating. But release cycles are not. And we want to get people involved in the former, the social sciences side to software can be learnt later by anyone in tech and is easier if it's gained through experience anyway

That's awful. I'm in tech too. Can we influence this? Is it monitored by the BCS?

Yes Edexcel is 50% coding. Honestly though the overall syllabus is set by the government and could do with some trimming down of the theory. There's no space to do the ethics properly so it just should be stripped out. Likewise it isnt particularly interesting to compare secondary storage types or useful to classify software into utility and application software.

That said, understanding how the cpu, ram and secondary storage interact, how the operating system controls the interactions between the hardware and the software, how high level languages are compiled to machine code and how data such as images can be expressed as binary is kind of interesting. At any rate it provides the intellectual scaffolding to understand what is actually happening inside a computer when you write code. And I guess education is at least partly about getting a good handle on underlying principles as there are many careers related to tech.

More depth, less breadth of theory, all exam boards to be 50% coding and a foundation tier are needed. One reason I have heard for not doing edexcel is that students find it too hard to code. And it's true. Students that are struggling with maths often find coding a nightmare and need a more straightforward paper to take.

Oh and OCR reference language should disappear forever. Don't look it up OP it will raise your blood pressure.

Apart from the syllabus changes unfortunately the big problem is a shortage of teachers that understand this stuff.

Aren’t all GCSEs a bit dull if you love the subject? I did English at uni and English gcse content my kids did is pretty dull - uninspiring and tick box. ds (Currently doing comp sci at uni) did gcse and a level comp sci - I guess neither put him off although his teachers lack of knowledge was noticeable at a level:recruiting good teachers is a nightmare…

I did geography at university (even did a PhD). That was despite how crap and boring school geography was.

I don’t think GCSE-level qualifications are generally indicative of how interesting or varied subjects can be.

Maybe much of a muchness, but it depends on the exam board. OCR is less coding based but AQA has a higher coding component, at least going by my dd and ds who went to different schools and took Computing at GCSE.

My DD also knows plenty of code (from home) and was v keen on the idea of CS GCSE but says the work is dull and too easy.

Such a pity because they have a small group of smart motivated students and could really be teaching them new fun stuff like building games or machine learning rather than just definitions of terms.

We are in another part of the UK where you can do a programming GCSE. My DS doesn’t mind it and is planning to do it for A level.
The teacher is not very inspiring though.
There is however a lot of theory.

Its my sons worst subject. He hates it. Which is a shame as hes always had a real interest in computers and coding.

To answer both @RedDogBlueDog and this post - DD did natural science, but she took the biology pathway and just did psychology in her final year, so it wasn’t that she’d done physics type stuff. But she did have some friends who were studying computing, and she did some hackathons with them for fun, and then her current company sent out a mail shot to final year NS students and it all went from there. So much more through circumstance and aptitude than a plan!

I think most STEM are dry in the GCSE/A Level years, and they really don’t need to be.

I knew nothing of Data Science/coding/bioinformatics etc until I did my degree (mature student) and I did about a modules worth per year as well as side small qualifications that were funded by Uni.

Interested me enough to make me apply for a Bioinformatics masters that starts this year; even more so when I realised how ND friendly it is/the money involved.

Look at the edexcel exam board. It's much better because they have a practical coding exam. The Edexcel iGCSE is also pretty good.

My DD is enjoying an interesting and well paid career as a software developer. She has no qualifications in the subject and was recruited while studying science at university. She's only 24, so this is recent. Her company also recruits via apprenticeship. They do their own aptitude tests rather than looking for school qualifications in CS.

Dd was in the cohort where the coding element was going to form part of the new gcse mark, 20%. She won't hours doing hers and it was then scrapped in the January before the may exam, due to some centres not following the guidelines properly and giving their pupils an unfair advantage apparently. It was her favourite part of course the gcse and a level CS course, and an area she always scored best in. She was really annoyed about the scrapped coursework, especially as she'd already completed it following the rules.

I’m a Virologist, and GCSE Biology gave no indication of how much fun/how fascinating a Microbio degree would be. It hasn’t changed in the 20+ years since then either.

DD thinks it’s dull, but I’m tech-adjacent and have a friend who works in tech so she’s well aware that the GCSE/A Level stuff doesn’t really represent what degrees/jobs look like. I’d wager if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t still be aiming for Tech.