How good is OCR AS/A Level Computer Science (H046, H446) (from 2015)?

Hey, im in year 12 currently doing this exact subject combination and personally I'm really enjoying it. I like you want to do comp. sci. at university, and I do have to admit that a lot of unis don't see it as a particularly useful course, but heres why... Basically if you look at the older spec they did very little (compared to ours like none) programming in the AS level and then they had the coursework at A2, but as I have seen from friends doing that currently you can get a decent mark (like a B maybe an A) without having a very complicated program.

However, the new spec is a lot better, it's not perfect with still a fair bit of 'wishy-washy' stuff about ethics and that, but it is a serious improvement and will help likely help you at uni.

Though, pro-tip before picking in it talk to some people at your preferred sixth form taking it and not just at the open day (maybe you could ask for an e-mail to ask more questions or something) and really try to get a feel for the department because I have heard too many horror stories about computing teachers in the country and it is a subject where a good teacher makes soo much difference as there aren't many good resources out there for it.

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions fire away

However, the new spec is a lot better, it's not perfect with still a fair bit of 'wishy-washy' stuff about ethics and that, but it is a serious improvement and will help likely help you at uni.

It's a shame to hear about what's happen at gcse Don't let it put you of alevel, but do take it as a warning for how bad teaching for computing can be.

Ok, so I have been very lucky in that I have been taught by someone that actually wrote parts of the spec and one of the unit's papers and hence I have been taught the correct interpretations of everything. This is of course not the case for everyone and a lot of the resources are clearly trying to guess what is needed to be known. For example even the officially endorsed textbook is rubbish, it goes off on tangents and has really obvious mistakes. This is why I warn that you should only take it is the students at your chosen sixth form seem to enjoy it and sound like their in line for good grades.

There is no coursework at as level, that is for the full A2. It is very similar to gcse coursework except you are expected to come up with your own project and work with a real client. If your school has bad timing with it again you can easier start early on your own, I already have part of my design written. So at alevel as you need to be more independent anyway that kinda of issue occurs a lot less.

In the exam you are expected to code in pseudocode and they can also ask for very simple javascript and little man computer assembly code as well. The pseudocode is a jump up from the difficulty at gcse and you are expected to be a lot more precise so don't under-estimate it.

So taking computing should maybe with a pinch of salt, not because of the subject but simply because of the lack of teachers in this country that can actually teach it well (I also had bad gsce teacher at my old school, one of the lovely-est people but couldn't code to save her life )

Doing the first year currently, from my experience it is a huge step up from GCSE IT/Computing.



Personally, this guy seems a little cocky with the subject. It's very heavily underworked on. The textbook that supports the course is really bad, weak and nothing compared to the AQA side. The support is still behind.

We are waiting for more resources on the topic, yet OCR have decided to only start publishing them now towards the end of our AS levels.

Personally, I would say take it, but in a few years when the course has more material. Currently it's really badly supported. Go aqa if possible

I don't get all this praise on this subject. The AS exam is tomorrow, here is my experience of OCR Computer Science over the last two years.

OCR is a joke. Literally a joke. Last year, they CHANGED the SPECIFICATION literally 3 DAYS after the exam, and again in January with no indication of what was changed unless you called the exam board - about a two-week reply to say they didn't know either. The 'subject specialists' are also basically frauds. Grade boundaries were also rock-bottom, with around 40% scoring you an A - Just shows how bad the entire country was at this exam! I'm sure you've also heard about the other messed up exams they've done this year at GCSE level? God knows how this board are allowed to operate in this country.

When it comes to the project, the average amount of time you'd get is maybe 6 months, depending on when your teacher starts it. Because of how bad last year went (Out of 12 people, only 3 gained a C or above, me not included) we wanted to confirm with the exam board with written proof that our projects were good enough to go. This is where Robert Leeman comes in. I don't know anybody in my class that didn't take the piss out of this guy, just at how slow he was to reply (two weeks on a good day!) and how utterly useless his replies were! He judged our projects all on complexity, many of the replies we get literally just saying "not complex enough" with no ideas on improvements. After we looked at the mark scheme, there was physically no mention on complexity, meaning we wasted so much time with this guy it gave us two months left to complete these projects - I basically lied my way through this with the most broken code you'll ever see to the point only one thing actually worked in it, still scored 52/70 unmoderated thanks to my write-up and '********ting skills'.

The course itself isn't too hard to learn, although I do also struggle with different aspects of it, to be expected without taking a GCSE course on computer science - my previous school did not have one. My teacher told us about a conference with Vinay Thawait, another subject specialist of the course. He didn't know what he was talking about, and apparently, no other teacher at this conference really cared too much either. When it came to questions, my teacher was the only one to actually ask anything, question after question, Thawait being utterly disinterested in anything asked and obviously wanted to just leave.

Can I also add that this is the only exam board to offer NO PAST OR SPECIMINE PAPERS widely available to students? The only way to access anything is either through a teacher login where there is ONLY ONE EXAMPLE of each paper or through third party sources which don't know any better themselves. All I've got is a poorly-written textbook full of mistakes, grammatical errors and more...

I don't think I've ever taken a course so unorganised, so problematic and stressful as this! It also doesn't help that this was also the first two years of it being run, another cause for disaster in this subject. I don't think I'll pass these two exams which are the most disheartening part of it all, which has limited my future and put me under a lot of pressure, something I do not want or need. Last year I scored an E. I've got 20% now done with the project complete which does help a little, now to complete two 2:30 papers and hope for the best.

In my experience, OCR A-LEVEL COMPUTER SCIENCE IS A LOAD OF SH**!

I have just taken 1 out of the 2 papers today and the majority of the topics in the specification (e.g. FDE cycle, databases and TCP/IP networking stuff...) were not even in the exam. The specification was also heavily misleading; OCR posted a 'subject clarification' PDF just less than a month ago which is absolutely ludicrous - this meant that books and other resources covered topics which were not even going to be tested!

The coursework was pretty bad too - it's basically choosing a project idea which will get a good mark. In my case, I chose a quiz generator which was tedious to code and write up, but at least I got a high mark for it. The write up is by far the worst part of the course.

There is also a lot of overlap between GCSE Computer Science and A-Level Computer Science (e.g. ROM/RAM, FDE cycle, binary/hex/denary conversion...) as GCSE is not a prerequisite for A-Level. The A-Level covers many different topics, but at a very shallow level.

If I could go back in time, I definitely would not have picked A-Level Computer Science! I would've preferred to just research topics on my own, and create and program projects which I am genuinely interested in, such as web applications, instead of wasting 2 years... (most topics in A-Level will be covered in the 1st year of uni at a much greater depth)

Link to OCR's brilliant specification: http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/383613-subject-content-clarification-guide-a-level.pdf