The National 4 & 5 Computing Science course enables pupils to plan, develop and understand various Computing Science concepts. This will improve their ability to solve problems and give them the ability to create working solutions. The course will also give pupils the opportunity to understand the inner workings of a computer system that is used every day.

In N4 & N5 pupils will continue to develop the skills learned in the Broad General education. One of the practical abilities the pupils will continue to develop will be the pupils’ ability to create an electronic database using either Microsoft Access of Filemaker Pro. The pupils will also continue to analyse, design and create programs using skills they have learnt throughout their time in the Computing department. This will form part of the course assessment and will be used to assess the pupils.

Pupils will also be given the opportunity to complete a case study on the Amazon website which will help them fully understand the importance of digital security and web design. This follows on from a HTML part of the course that has the pupils designing and creating their own website. This will include the various types of malware and security risks that companies like Amazon face on a daily basis.

Pupils will also learn about the architecture of the computer and how they interact with each other. This will include the difference between machine code and a high level language and how the computer translates from one to the other. This will give pupils a working knowledge of how a computer works from storing data to how data is accessed within the computer.