ICT or Computer Science

[redbeard]

DS 13 about to choose options has been told the school may be running both ict and computer science.
Is one considered better than the other or just different, have no idea what one would be best.

Computing - if your kid is interested is coding, bright, good at maths etc and needs a good solid well thought of gcse subject, then do it.

If they're not remotely interested in coding, not that academic, or academic but with plenty of other well thought of subjects and they need an easy filler, do ICT.

Computer science is the way to go .

Thank you , had a suspicion that computer science was the way to go.

and ideally to do Computer Science at university it is probably also good to have Physics, or at least some Science, and really good Maths.

(Some Unis are better than others for Computer Science, so research it thoroughly)

Ok ,thanks, he is good at maths ,but not top set , taking triple science, is it a very hard subject to take?

Does anybody know if computer science is ok for a level 6 student (y9) ? in maths and science.

My DD is doing computer science - from what I've seen it doesn't particularly require outstanding maths or science ability, but it is a good choice for anyone interested in going into any STEM field.

There is quite a lot of course work (that may apply to ICT too, I don't know) which is something you need to think about in terms of your DCs learning style and other options.

You might want to discuss this in more detail with his school - if CS is a new offering for them, do they have a proper CS teacher? Last year DD had a teacher who'd not done it before, this year they got a new guy and its suddenly become really enjoyable. Find out a bit more about what they're planning to do (CS doesn't seem tightly defined in terms of what language or OS they use - last year she was doing Visual Basic on Windows(ugh), this year learning linux and shell scripting on Raspberry pi)