Is anybody here a Computer Science teacher?

[Studyleav1]

My son is doing his GCSE computer science and they seem to have had very little teaching of paper 2. He codes a lot in his spare time and when we have done past papers, when he has to write code in the exam I can't tell if he has it right or not as it doesn't match.
He tells me it's fine as what he does means the same, but my concern is he is not doing what is being asked in the specification but doing something potentially higher level which will be marked wrong.
I wondered if anyone would be willing to cast an eye over what he does to see if he is getting it right or wrong.

I could ask his teacher but honestly I have lost all faith in them.

[PeekAtYou]

Have you tried the examiner's notes to exam papers? It gives guidance to markers about what gets a mark.

They are available on the exam board website except for the very newest ones which will be used for current year 10 end of year exams.

[Alexandria12]

Which exam board is it?

[Studyleav1]

It’s OCR

[Alexandria12]

So in the OCR exam the questions are written in OCR Reference Language. This is a made up / pretend language created by OCR. I personally have huge issues with them doing this as it can't be compiled and they often make mistakes but no one can contradict them given that their pretend code can't be run. It is also totally confusing for children. Personally I feel the exam should just be written in a real programming language.

Anyway the good news is that he can answer in the programming language of his choice. Just tell him to keep it simple. So if using Python no references to libraries other than basic ones like random. Make sure indents are clear. Use the basic structures if, elif, else, for, while etc.

[Alexandria12]

@PeekAtYou not much good in ocr cs as the exam workscheme says you can write in any high level language of which there are dozens in use. It also only usually gives one solution (there could be lots) written in OCR's made up programming language.

Edexcel is doing better and getting children to write actual code on an actual computer!

[maddy68]

He's right. It doesn't have to be the same

[Studyleav1]

Thanks so much. Here is one answer he did and I have no idea if it’s correct or not.

im not sure if you can read his writing?

he really dislikes the curriculum and is one of the reasons he wants to do b tec next year and not A level computer science.

[Studyleav1]

Sorry. Went sideways. Not sure if this is better.

[Studyleav1]

Nope sorry. Can’t get it upright.