The new OCR J277 GCSE Computer Science specification has introduced a new language, the OCR Exam Reference Language. The goal of introducing this is to help add consistency programming questions. However, students can also use this language to answer programming questions with too.
The OCR ERL isn’t too different to the pseudocode used by OCR in the J276 GCSE Computer Science exams. However, they have now formalised it’s rules so that schools can prepare students better to interpret the code in the Computational Thinking, Algorithms & Programming exam papers.
The downside to OCR ERL is that despite students being able to answer exam questions in this imaginary high-level language, in practice we will need to still teach students an actual high-level language like Python. So how do we teach Python AND OCR Exam Reference Language?
Well, a great tool for this can now be downloaded from KnowItAllNinja.com. This high-quality “cheat sheet” style OCR Exam Reference Language poster can be printed in large scale and displayed in your classrooms so students are always reminded of the language syntax.
You could even print it in A4 as handouts to the class (or send digitally) so they can keep it for reference when revising for practice tests and their Computational Thinking, Algorithms & Programming exams.
OCR Exam Reference Language Exam Prep
Another great way of helping ensure you have the time to deliver the J277 OCR GCSE Computer Science learning content, and prepare students to use two different languages, is to use KnowItAll Ninja.
We have e-learning revision courses for both J277/01 Computer Systems and J277/02 Computational Thinking, Algorithms & Programming. These courses cover the entirety of the learning aims for these two exam papers and are a great learning and revision tool.
Not only are these e-learning courses interactive, informative and engaging, but they also offer a number of extra features to help you prepare your students. This includes:
- Achievements, experience points, levelling & leaderboards to drive student engagement.
- Interactive, self-marking quizzes on every single lesson to check students understanding and progress.
- A student tracker to allow teachers to monitor students progress throughout the course, even being able to see what answers students submitted for every question.
Subscribing is very affordable for schools. There is a flexible pricing structure that starts from as little as £30 for 10 students. But don’t worry if you have larger groups, the cost is discounted even further as you register more students.
So if you want the best opportunity to for your students to succeed in their J277 OCR GCSE Computer Science exams then you should be using KnowItAllNinja.com.