
Essential programming skills to learn
Below is a list of programming skills we aim to mostly cover between years 7 and 11 in computing and computer science. If you feel you are ahead, or behind, take a look through the list and practise the skills yourself. There are many resources online, especially on YouTube, that explain how to use python and provide ideas for projects and tasks.
These skills can be achieved by programming a console application (like in repl.it or Hartismere Python).
Basic
- Outputting text to the console
- Declaring string variables
- Getting a user input from the console
- Joining strings together (concatenating)
- Performing IF statements testing for equality
- Declaring integer variables
- Performing calculations using Integers
- Performing IF statements using the operators >, >=, <, <=, !=
Intermediate
- Converting data types (integer to string, string to integer)
- Using While loops
- Defining and calling your own procedure
- Defining and calling your own function that returns a value
- Declaring and performing calculations using doubles
- Declaring and using an array
- Performing a Switch Case selection
Expert
- Performing For loops
- Declaring and using lists
- Looping through arrays and lists
- Reading and writing to files
- Independently problem solving
Infinity and beyond
- Experimenting using different programming languages (such as C#)
- Programming hardware (such as a Raspberry Pi or equivalent)
- Implementing networking capabilities
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