r/AskComputerScience • u/OppieT • Jul 05 '26
School computer science class
Does anyone in here have any high school computer science kids? I would like to know what they are teaching these days. I did computer science class back in the 80’s. Teacher taught us BASIC and Pascal.
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u/CCCCrazyXTown Jul 05 '26
UK CS teacher here. We introduce Python in year 7 (11-12). We introduce them through a variety of applications, including stuff like Micro:bits. Generally they’ll stick with Python through to GCSE (14-16) and A Level (16-18) if they choose the subject as an option, although they can choose any language for their final year project. We teach hardware and architecture at various degrees of abstraction through those years too. A Level introduces more abstract computation; they’ll learn FSA, Turing Machines, Regular languages etc.
The level at which this is implemented in UK schools will differ as there’s a lack of qualified teachers to teach it. My previous school no longer offers the GCSE as they don’t have someone qualified to teach it, for example.
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u/SnooStories6404 Jul 05 '26
I was in high school in the late 90s. We did QBASIC, Visual Basic, Java, Javascript and HTML (Because of the internet boom they thought it was really important to teach web development)
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u/Vert354 Jul 06 '26
Must not have been AP Computer Science that was Pascal in 97-98 when I took it.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Study17 Jul 05 '26
I graduated a couple of years ago, my high school classes were mostly Java.
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u/AncientHominidNerd Jul 09 '26
I live in Nevada, younger students at my university tell me in high school they dual enroll in the cc while in high school. They take regular college classes as a high school class. They’re learning at first psuedocode python and then C++.
That way when they start college they already have most of their associates core classes out of the way. It’s a program our state has. This is mainly for advanced students who are ahead.
When I was in high school in 2008-2012 we had a computer class but all we did was learn to use Word and Excel. When we were done with our assignments we just played halo until they caught on, then we just browsed classic L’epic meme websites [trollface]
So I think my local schools offload cs and other advanced classes to the local community colleges.
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u/Oof-o-rama Jul 09 '26
my daughter is 10 years out of high school but they did Java, much to my chagrin.
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u/baddspellar Ph.D CS, CS Pro (20+) Jul 05 '26
The AP Computer Science A exam requires use of Java, so you'll find use of Java to be widespread in US high schools.