United Kingdom · National Curriculum Attainment Targets
Year 7 Computing
A comprehensive introduction to computational thinking and digital systems designed for the transition to secondary school. Students move from being passive users of technology to becoming creators through programming, networking basics, and data modeling.
Impacts and Digital Literacy
This unit establishes safe and effective working practices while exploring the societal impact of technology. Students learn to manage their digital footprint and navigate the school network securely.
Exploring how personal data is collected and the long term consequences of an online presence.
Understanding common threats like phishing and malware and how to defend against them.
Computational Thinking and Logic
Focuses on the core problem solving techniques that underpin computer science, including abstraction and decomposition. Students learn to solve problems without initially using a computer.
Breaking complex problems into smaller parts and removing unnecessary detail to focus on the core issue.
Creating and interpreting flowcharts and pseudocode to represent logical processes.
Programming with Blocks
Transitioning from logic to implementation using block based languages like Scratch. Students build interactive projects using variables and selection.
Mastering the order of execution and using repetition to make code more efficient.
Using inputs and if-then-else statements to create dynamic and responsive programs.
Computer Systems and Hardware
An exploration of the physical components of a computer and how they work together to process data. Students learn about the Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle.
Identifying internal components like the CPU, RAM, and storage devices.
Understanding how humans interact with machines through various peripherals.
Data Representation
Investigating how computers use binary to represent all types of data, from numbers to images and sound.
Learning to convert between base-2 and base-10 number systems.
Understanding pixels, resolution, and how colors are encoded in binary.
Networks and the Web
Exploring how computers connect to one another and the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Comparing different ways of connecting computers in a local area network.
Understanding HTML, web browsers, and how search engines index the internet.