National Centre for Computing Education

Home teaching week 8

National Centre for Computing Education -

Hello! It's week 8 of our home teaching programme and, honestly, we can't believe how quickly the time has gone.

Over 50,000 of you have visited our home teaching pages over the past 2 months. We are really proud that we could support so many teachers and students remotely during this time. Thanks to everyone who has joined our community of learners.

We also want to give a shout out to our School Hubs who run live Q&A sessions for all key stages. You are doing a great job explaining the lessons and spreading the word through your social channels. Thank you.

If you need something from the lessons explained or clarified, the timings for the Q&A sessions can be found on each key stage's homepage.

Key Stage 1

  • Create your own version of Supermarket Sweep with our Shopping List resource! In this activity, children will learn to identify the ingredients they need to make a cake and create a shopping list. In doing so, they develop their skills of abstraction and their understanding of algorithms.

Key Stage 2

  • Scratch Pathway 1 - Grab your astronaut suit because you're about to get Lost in space! Learn how to programme your own animation in Scratch by using the repeat loop to animate sprites, and then using forever loop to repeat your animation indefinitely!
  • Scratch Pathway 2 - Learn how to create a platform game in our Dodgeball resource where the player has to dodge moving balls to reach the end of the level.

Key Stage 3

  • Do you want to change the world? Our new Digital Literacy course is a good place to start. In this unit, you will develop a deeper understanding of information technology and digital literacy by using your skills to create a blog post about a real world cause that you are passionate about and would like to gain support for.
  • If you missed out on the first run of our phone app project and want another chance to join in, check out our fantastic App Development resource, presented by Ben Garside.
  • In our Cybersecurity unit, you will go on a journey of discovery into the techniques that cybercriminals use to steal data, disrupt systems, and infiltrate networks. This week is about social engineering.
  • Python Programming Pathway 1 - this is a great set of starter resources for teachers wishing to introduce Python into their classrooms. In this week's lesson, you will learn how to make a Rock, Paper, Scissors game and play against the computer.
  • Python Programming Pathway 2 - another new set of Python resources that you can use instead of Pathway 1. This week, you'll be learning how to create pie charts and bar graphs from data that you collect from members of your class or family.

Key Stage 4

  • In Networks this week, you'll explore client server and P2P network models as well as gaining an understanding of network hardware.
  • Basics of Python Programming: explore the basics of Python through a weekly online course where you'll learn to code your first program. This week, you will start to make your own Python chatbot.
  • Algorithms and advanced Python programming: take your Python skills further through a weekly online course. You’ll discover how to break down problems into smaller parts, and then design and apply algorithms to data. This week, you will explore how to use lists and arrays.
  • Maths & Logic in Computer Science: build your understanding of a range of topics, including using logic and mathematical operators in programming, and converting numbers to binary. This week, you will look at using mathematical operators to combine and compare numbers.
  • If you are a GCSE student transitioning to A level, get started with our transition topics on the Isaac Computer Science platform! The second lesson in our series is GCSE-level Boolean logic. You'll learn how to combine the basic AND, OR, and NOT logic gates to create more complex logic circuits.
  • Join our Object-Oriented Programming course. This is a super fun course where users can make objects in Python and create their own adventure game!

Key Stage 5

  • If you're an A level student, why not join our scheme of work on Number bases and algorithms? It's great way to keep things fresh in your mind for next year. This week's lesson is about fixed point numbers. You will learn: how to convert a fixed point number into denary; how to convert a denary number into fixed point form; and how to represent signed fractional numbers in fixed-point form.
  • We are also running our Object-Oriented Programming course again. This is a super fun course where users can make objects in Python and create their own adventure game!