Teacher guide

AQA GCSE Computer Science revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Computer Science 8525. Eight of them, eight to fifteen minutes each, one for each of the specification's eight topic areas. The fork between the two big boards is worth knowing about. **AQA examines relational databases and SQL. Our mapping of Edexcel 1CP2 has no equivalent topic at all.** A student who moves school between the two courses meets a subject area that did not exist for them before, and a teacher moving between them has a topic to prepare that they may never have taught. Our activity for it covers the relational half, primary and foreign keys and how tables relate to each other. It does not cover writing queries, which is the other half of that topic and is said plainly below.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Computer Science 8525. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The topic the other board does not have

Computer Science looks like a settled subject from outside, and mostly it is: algorithms, data representation, hardware, networks, cyber security, and the ethical and legal impacts all appear on both major specifications.

Relational databases and SQL do not. It is one of AQA's eight topic areas, and our mapping of Edexcel 1CP2 has no databases topic in it. That makes it the sharpest practical difference between the two courses.

It also feels different to teach. The rest of Computer Science is reasoning about process: what an algorithm does, how a number is stored, why a network fails. Databases are about structure, and SQL is about asking a question in a language that is not the language students have been programming in all year.

Where our coverage stops

The databases activity covers the relational half and not the query half. Primary keys, foreign keys, how one table refers to another: that is there, and it is the conceptual part students most often muddle.

Writing a SELECT is not there. If your scheme of work reaches SQL in the spring, this page helps with the ideas underneath it and nothing with the syntax on top.

That is a gap rather than a design choice, and it is worth stating rather than letting a teacher discover it after setting it for homework.

One activity per area

Eight topic areas, eight activities. That is the widest spread and the thinnest depth of any subject on this site, and it suits a particular use: a single pass to find out which areas a class is shaky on, rather than a course of practice in any one of them.

The algorithms activity is the one most worth running first. It uses a trace table, and tracing is the skill that separates students who can follow code from students who recognise it. A trace table shows that difference in about a minute, which is faster than any amount of asking.

Using them

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. The activities themselves, with the recall goal spelled out, are described in ready-to-run revision activities, and for students working alone between lessons see independent revision students actually keep doing.

If you or your students also work on the other board, Edexcel GCSE Computer Science covers a specification with twenty finer-grained topics and a very different assessment shape.

To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint. Everything else we have, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

No SQL. The databases activity stops at the relational concepts.

Nothing for the programming project, which is where a good deal of the course's time goes. The activities cover the knowledge underneath it rather than the writing of code.

Eight activities is one pass, not a bank. A student who works through them has used everything here.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Computer Science activity for AQA

8 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Computer Science (8525).

Good for homework (4)

Good for intervention (1)

Algorithm Detective 9 min

See all 8, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Computer Science 9 minutes

Table Talk

14 steps, 8 interactive, 6 activity types.

Best used for

Starter Independent study

Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

In a database table, what is a **field**?

Try this activity with your class Create a free teacher account

AQA Computer Science 9 minutes

Algorithm Detective

13 steps, 8 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for

Starter Independent study Intervention

Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.

Try one question

Using that algorithm, what is output when `a = 4` and `b = 7`?

Try this activity with your class Create a free teacher account

AQA Computer Science 8 minutes

Base Camp

13 steps, 8 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for

Starter Independent study

Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

Which digits can appear in a binary number?

Try this activity with your class Create a free teacher account

Common questions

What does AQA examine that Edexcel does not?

Relational databases and SQL. It is one of AQA's eight topic areas and there is no equivalent in our mapping of Edexcel 1CP2, so a student moving between the two courses meets a topic that simply is not there on the other.

Do your activities cover SQL?

No, and that is the honest gap. The databases activity covers the relational concepts, primary and foreign keys and how tables relate. It does not ask students to write a query, so the SQL half of that topic is not here.

How much is there?

Eight activities across eight topic areas, eight to fifteen minutes each. That is one pass at the widest possible spread and the least depth of any subject on this site.

Is there anything for the programming project?

Not directly. The activities cover algorithms, data types and number bases, which is the knowledge a programming task rests on, but writing and debugging real code happens in your room and not here.

Which activity is most worth using?

For most classes, the algorithms one. It uses a trace table, which is the thing students either can do or cannot, and the difference is visible in about a minute.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Related for teachers

Edexcel GCSE Computer Science revision Every live Edexcel GCSE Computer Science (1CP2) revision activity, split the way the specification splits its two papers, with a straight account of what revision can and cannot do for an onscreen programming exam.
Independent revision students actually keep doing What keeps a student revising when nobody is watching, what DoRevision does about it, and where the limits of that are. Written for the teacher who has run out of ways to chase Year 11 in April.
Ready-to-run GCSE revision activities A working list of GCSE revision activities, each with the thing it makes students recall, the moment they find out whether they were right, and what they do about it. Some run on a screen and some need nothing but a board.