Advanced Higher Computing

Computing Science: Advanced Higher

The AH Computing Science course offers students the opportunity to explore Computing Science in greater depth. It prepares students with not only the technical knowledge to implement solutions but also the project management skills to see a project through to completion successfully.

The course is especially suited to students considering a career in Computing Science. It will also benefit any student who wishes to develop their skills in critical thinking, problems-solving and planning.

Entry to the course

This is at the discretion of the school but you would normally be expected to have attained Higher Computing at grade B or above.

Course Structure

The course consists of three units:

Software Design and Development

  • Consider Project Planning and Development processes in the context of creating software
  • Advanced Data Structures – Parallel Arrays, Arrays of Records, Arrays of Objects, 2D Arrays
  • Object-Oriented Programming
  • Searching and Sorting Algorithms

Database Design and Development

  • Consider Project Planning and Development processes in the context of creating databases
  • Multi-table Relational Databases
  • Server-hosted databases
  • Database Definition Language (MySQL)
  • Database Manipulation Language (MySQL)

Web Design and Development

  • Consider Project Planning and Development processes in the context of creating websites
  • Capturing data with HTML Forms
  • Responsive design for different devices
  • PHP – Server-side scripting

Assessment

The course is assessed by an external exam set by SQA and a coursework ‘project’ issued by SQA.

Exam

  • 2 hrs
  • 55 marks

Project

  • Completed alongside course
  • 80 marks

Downloads

The following sites link to free or trial versions of some of the software we use on this course. This information is provided should pupils wish to practise further with the software at home. This is not compulsory for any course. In all cases, a responsible adult should read and agree to any terms and conditions associated with downloading software from external commercial sites.

  • Visual Basic – Programming language (Visual Studio Community 2022)
  • EasyPHP – Web hosting and SQL database (Apache server, MySQL, PHP)

You may be asked to enter your Microsoft Credentials. This is your full Glow username including@glow.sch.uk (e.g. gw10smithjohn@glow.sch.uk) and your password.

Support and Resources

All slides for this course can be found in the Resources tab of the class Team.
Additional reading and self-tests are available in Scholar within Glow.