Anyone's child selected AQA Computer Science 8520 for 2020 ?

[mystery]

Anyone got a student in the family who has selected this particular course as a GCSE option?

Have you heard anything official via school as to what might be happening re. the 2020 sitting re. the project?

There are some news articles from January this year talking about a cheating problem surrounding the current project arrangements and the project not counting in 2018 or 2019.

So I am wondering if they are going to change the actual exams for 2020? Or the rules surrounding the project? Or have an additional coding paper during the summer GCSE sitting?

[doodles]

Ds2 is sitting this this year and had completed all but a couple of hours of his controlled assessment which has now had to be scrapped. If I could just have a word with the idiots who started these shenanigans, it's been rather stressful

[mystery]

Ds2 is sitting this this year and had completed all but a couple of hours of his controlled assessment which has now had to be scrapped. If I could just have a word with the idiots who started these shenanigans, it's been rather stressful

Really sorry to hear that. It's a bit rubbish.

[Hera]

DS is doing OCR computer science this year and was gutted that the NEA is not being counted now. The official statement is that although the children need to complete it this year and in 2019 it will not count to the overall mark. Nothing had been announced about what will happen after 2019. I will also have a child taking it in 2020.

[mystery]

Sorry to hear that too. Please let me know if you hear anything extra from school that they may have received from the exam board. I am going to ask about it because it may be a reason for changing an option. We were not aware that there was an issue with the project when some quite detailed consideration was put into the choice partly based on the methods and timings of assessments in this particular subject.

[BucksBornNBred]

Sorry if this sounds stupid, but exam in 2020 means DC is currently in year 9, right? My DS is thinking of taking computer science but I am worried now.

[mystery]

Yes, year 9 now. Option choices were made late January at our school.

[BucksBornNBred]

Yes, year 9 now. Option choices were made late January at our school.

Thank you Mystery; we still have a couple of days left to choose. Are there any links so I can see the issues with this course? TBH though I think the choice is this or Business Studies so wondering which is the lesser of two evils

[Guest55]

I suspect a decision will be made before September as teachers will need to know.

Official notification here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... er-science" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ToadMum]

Yes, year 9 now. Option choices were made late January at our school.

Thank you Mystery; we still have a couple of days left to choose. Are there any links so I can see the issues with this course? TBH though I think the choice is this or Business Studies so wondering which is the lesser of two evils

Have a look here:

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/computer ... ience-8520

Ours are all past the choosing GCSEs stage now, but I don't think I would let this year's issues put me off encouraging them to take the GCSE if they wanted to.