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The HN title should be modified to reflect that this applies to England not the UK as a whole.

[Apologies for, yet again, playing the role of the bad tempered Scot.]



This might interest you (if you haven't seen it already): http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/computer-sci... :)


Have a look at a recent paper from the Scottish Computing Advanced Higher exam:

http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2011/AH_Compu...

Looks pretty good to me - it has everything from Prolog down to assembly in it.


It's great in theory, less in practice.

The school I went to in Scotland only offered computing up to a level known as "Intermediate 2", which was somewhere between a GCSE and an AS level. We did some Java programming, and it was quite an interesting class that provided enough of a basis in basic programming concepts that I was able to continue learning, but that was it.

Higher computing? You had to get a 30 minute bus to a local adult-education type college. Advanced higer computer science? I wouldn't be surprised if fewer than 100 people a year actually sit that exam. I did advanced higher maths, and only 400 people sit the exam a year.

The Scottish curriculum is often quite good (AH maths taught me the first year and a half of my engineering degree's maths modules), but it suffers from a lack of students taking it. It's poorly recognised outside of Scotland (AH's are generally harder than A levels, yet are seen on the same level by most English universities), and the private schools that would give it some clout almost all use the English curriculum.


Sounds very much like the Sixth Year Studies courses I did in the early 80s - very few people did them.




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