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62 teachwire.net/secondary “The views of teachers drive our CHOICES ” Ceredig Cattanach-Chell gives us an insight into the processes and decisions that informed OCR’s updated computer science qualification F ive years ago I started working for OCR as a computer science subject advisor. It was a big change from teaching, at a time when large-scale GCSE reforms were taking place. It was an exciting time. I reflect now on my job interview with a wry smile. My soon-to-be line manager told me at the time, "Now that the reforms have passed, the next few years should be quite quiet for Computer Science..." Since then there have been some major changes to GCSE computer science and a series of similarly significant changes across the ICT curriculum available to schools. Community engagement At OCR, our response to change has always been driven by teachers and pupils. As the most popular exam board for GCSE computer science, we’ve always prided ourselves in engaging with the teaching community and have worked to establish significant relationships with industry, FE and HE stakeholders. Because of our deep connections, we’ve always been keenly aware of the support needs among computer science teachers. In 2016 we launched a series of 'all-in-one' Teacher Delivery Packs – resource packs containing lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, multiple choice quizzes and lesson activities for each specific topic. To date, our Teacher Delivery Packs have been downloaded more than 65,000 times, with the most popular units receiving over 11,000 downloads. As the leading exam board for computer science, the updates we made to our qualification for first- teach September 2020 were extremely important. We wanted to reaffirm our commitment to listening to teachers and understanding their needs, whilst developing a high- quality, relevant GCSE. The drive for the updates, through Ofqual, was the removal of non-examination assessment from the 2016 specifications. An interim solution, 'The programming project', has been in place, but a long-term solution for first teach 2020 was ultimately required. Engagementwith teachers To better understand teachers’ views and opinions, we carried out teacher questionnaires, organised face-to-face discussions and canvassed opinions via online polls. Based on the extensive feedback we received, we were able to identify those areas we needed to investigate further. Ofqual had stated that assessment of practical programming skills had to be done via examination. We needed to decide how to update our qualification in order to reflect this new requirement, while at the same time ensuring that the views of teachers were shaping the choices we made. One area we wanted to explore thoroughly was that of computer- based testing (CBT). A key decision we needed to make was whether the examination should be completed using a computer – online or offline – or through traditional paper-based assessment. The main hurdle teachers identified in relation to CBT was resourcing, and the need to provide sufficient access to PCs, technicians, and reliable networks. Naturally, teachers expected the scale of those concerns to escalate as the number of candidates entered within a school increased. Interestingly, however, there was also a strong belief among teachers that the practical testing of skills would constitute a more realistic and valid form of assessment. Targetednetworks During the 2019 spring term, we therefore established a number of targeted teacher “Themain hurdle teachers identified in relationto computer-based testingwas resourcing”