Hartismere School

Est. 1451. An outstanding coeducational secondary school & sixth form college and England's first academy

Home Login

Taking A Level Computer Science

Two most important questions

Can I study A level computer science if I have not studied it at GCSE?

Many students ask this question. The answer is always ‘yes… but…’. Computer Science requires a lot of programming - it's one of the reasons we insist on a grade 6 in maths or a grade 6 in computer science. If you don’t like programming, you will hate it. There is also quite a bit of complex theory and those who study at GCSE will have a basic understanding of most of it. To be brutally honest, most of the students who have taken computer science after not studying at GCSE have found it a step too far and have not achieved as they would have expected. If you want to be successful, it would be a good idea to prepare a little first, both in terms of programming and theory. 

What can I do to prepare for A level computer science?

The most useful way of preparing would be to improve your skills in programming. Understanding how programming works will help to make everything else in the course make sense. It is also best learnt independently, unlike theory. The programming language we use to create software is C#, with a bit of HTML, CSS and JavaScript for web development. Any work you can do in these would be very beneficial. Below are some links that will be useful: 

In this section...

Coding Challenges for GCSE and A Level Computer Science

Toyota Virtual Plant Tour

How robots are taking over warehouse work

A Level CS: Algorithm Assembly Instructions

See also...

Social Sciences

CEIAG (Careers Education, Information, Advice & Guidance)

Computer Science

National SMSC Quality Mark - Gold

Our curriculum

Revision for computer science

1.6 Systems Security Flashcards | Quizlet

GCSE Computer Science

Programming software

Languages

Explore...

Bronze DofE First Aid Training and Camp Skills Day Letter

The Wave: summary

DofE Kit List

Welcome to Hartismere!

GCSE CS: 1.6 Social Engineering Excerise

The Lost Boys opening

Online Little Man Computer - CPU simulator

Bronze Expedition Letter 2025

Sorting Visualiser

Silver DofE First Aid and Expeditions Letter

New...

E-Safety

HERCULES THE MUSICAL- Years 7 & 8. London

Music Evenings 2025

Film Academy Shorts

Managing In-Game Spending

Hartismere Family :: Policy Documents

Vacancies

WAR HORSE, Norwich Theatre Royal, Thursday 6th November 2025 Places available

Discover...

Robmiles.Com Student Information A Level A Level CS GCSE Computer Science GCSE CS Design Safety The Guardian Rules Dracula Religious Uniform Safeguarding School Nurse Fine Art Theory Vertigo Parent Information Key Stage 4 Year 9 Options Feedback

Uh-oh - we were unable to load our website on your browser so we're showing you a plain HTML version.

We use many features found in modern browsers and regrettably yours seems incompatible.

However this legacy version contains (very, very nearly) all the same content. Each page is rendered on our server and doesn't rely on any browser features except the odd font. It doesn't even need Javascript or fancy CSS. It's like being in 1995!

Your browser is reporting itself to us as Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com). Please consider updating your browser to make the most of our website.

If you would like to try our proper website again - you can do so here...