GCSE Computer Science, but no teacher

[coldandalone]

DD (year 10) has just started her GCSE computer science course and we've been told the teacher is leaving at Christmas. There isn't another teacher and, given the well publicised shortage, it took the school forever to recruit this one so I'm feeling really pessimistic about her getting anything other than second-rate cover any time soon. What can I do to help her through this? We have the GCSE OCR CS revision guide by CGP. Will that be enough for self-study or are there more resources we can get to help?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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 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.

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"

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!)

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