As our Year 13 Computer Science students shift their focus from the January mock exams toward their final assessments in June, they are now diving deeper into their onscreen programming paper.
A major part of this paper involves working with a “skeleton program” – a substantial piece of prewritten code that students must understand, modify and improve.
Each September, the exam board releases a new skeleton program for all A level Computer Science students. This year’s version, nearly 500 lines long, simulates the complex behaviour of an ant colony, complete with nests, queens, workers, food sources and pheromones.
To enrich the students’ understanding and help them draw meaningful connections between polymorphism in nature and polymorphism in object-orientated programming, all in an effort to anticipate potential exam questions, we were fortunate to receive support from the BSP’s very own myrmecologist (ant specialist), Ms A, Head of Biology.
Ms A generously prepared and delivered a fascinating lecture on ant behaviour, followed by an energetic Q&A session that allowed students to explore the science behind the simulation in greater depth. The talk has already sparked numerous new lines of enquiry for the students as they prepare for the unseen challenges of the June exam.
The Computer Science Department extends its sincere thanks to Ms A for her time, expertise, and enthusiasm.
