For teachers

Using Purely CS with your class

Free revision for OCR GCSE Computer Science (J277), written against the specification. Every page is mapped to the spec point it covers, so you can set a topic for homework or point a student at the one thing they are stuck on.

What your students won't need

No loginNo accounts and no sign-up.
No advertisementsThere is no advertising anywhere on the site.
No costAll of it is free, and stays free. If it helps your class, you can support us with an optional donation.
Progress stays on their deviceFlashcards, revised topics and their chosen level are saved in the browser, not on our servers.

We do track which pages get used, so we know what to improve. Nobody signs in, so that is never tied to a student's name. The full details are in our privacy policy.

Link straight to what you want

Any page link works on its own. Two small additions let you be more exact.

Jump to one part of a page

Add one of these to the end of a subtopic link and it opens at that part.

#learning-objectiveswhat the spec expects for this point
#worked-examplea worked example
#common-mistakescommon mistakes
#quick-checkmultiple choice questions
#practiceexam style questions with model answers
#examiner-insightswhat examiners reports say
#flashcardsthe flashcards

Seven pages also have #practice-drill, which opens endless practice questions marked instantly: number conversions and file sizes, searching and sorting, operators and loops, casting, strings, arrays, SQL and logic. Code questions appear in whichever language the student has chosen.

Set the level of detail

Notes come in three depths. Add a level to the link and the page opens at it, without asking the student to choose. They can still switch afterwards. Useful for giving one group the gentler version of the same topic.

?level=simpleSimple: plain explanations with analogies, for a first pass
?level=standardStandard: focused, concise notes
?level=exam-readyExam-ready: mark scheme phrasing and precise terminology

Putting it together

This opens computational thinking in its simplest form, straight at the exam questions:

https://purelycs.com/gcse/paper-2/algorithms/computational-thinking?level=simple#practice

What each topic gives them

Notes at three levels of detail, each tied to its point in the specification
Multiple choice questions with an explanation for every answer
Exam style questions with model answers and the phrasing mark schemes reward
Flashcards, plus a daily review that brings each card back just before it would be forgotten
Links to OCR's own past papers and mark schemes, which we link to rather than copy