A Level Computer Science Tutor Online

What is A level Computer Science?

A level Computer Science is a two-year qualification taken in Years 12 and 13. Every board's specification in England follows the Department for Education's subject content of April 2014, which lists programming, data types and structures, data representation, algorithms and their efficiency, databases, systems software, architecture, networks and programming paradigms, and requires "a minimum of 10% mathematics". At AQA 7517, Paper 1 is a 2 hour 30 minute on-screen exam worth 40 per cent, Paper 2 a written exam worth 40 per cent, and a 75-mark project the last 20 per cent. At OCR H446, two written papers with no calculators make up 80 per cent and a programming project 20 per cent. AQA says its specification is "not available to private candidates"; OCR says private candidates may enter. Modern Age Coders teaches A level Computer Science live online for both boards, in Python, with project method taught but never project work done.

Where to begin

Three courses for A level Computer Science

The first card is our A level course for AQA and OCR; the other two deepen the programming and algorithms underneath. Each opens a full syllabus.

A Level Computer Science for AQA 7517 and OCR H446 course thumbnail

LCS / 01

A level Computer Science, AQA and OCR

Both boards' content in Python, with paper practice for each and project method mentoring for the 20 per cent.

Open the syllabus →

LCS / 02

Python for teens

For a Year 12 student who arrives with little programming and needs fluency before the theory lands.

Open the syllabus →

Problem Solving for Teens course thumbnail

LCS / 03

Problem solving and data structures

Stacks, queues, trees, graphs and search, the algorithms both boards examine, practised in code.

Open the syllabus →

The shared core

What does every A level Computer Science course cover?

The same government list, whichever board a school chose. The DfE subject content sets out what is "common to all AS and A level specifications in computer science".

The DfE subject content for A level Computer Science (April 2014), in its own terms
Area	What the content requires
Principles	"abstraction, decomposition, logic, algorithms and data representation"
Programming	Fundamentals of programming; data types from primitive to complex data structures
Algorithms	Following and writing algorithms; at A level, "the importance of the efficiency of an algorithm" and "standard algorithms"
Data	Capturing, selecting, exchanging and managing data; at A level, databases including "database programming and producing a data model"
Systems	Systems software; processors, storage, input, output and connectivity; networks and protocols
Paradigms	At A level, "the need for and characteristics of a variety of programming paradigms"
Skills	"design, write and test programs"; arguing for correctness and efficiency; modular structure; writing specifications
Wider issues	The moral, ethical, legal and cultural opportunities and risks of digital technology

Why the core matters to a tutor

Because most of the subject is shared, good teaching of the core serves a student on either board. Recursion, a hash table, a two's complement number or a SQL join is the same idea at AQA and at OCR.

What changes between boards is how the idea is examined: on screen or on paper, in a real language or in pseudocode, inside a pre-released program or from a blank page.

What the core leaves to boards

Paper structure, timings, weightings, project rules and languages. Those come from each specification, and the board doors linked below go through them one board at a time.

Outside England, check the local list. OCR's specification says H446 "is available in England" and points Wales and Northern Ireland to their own qualification lists.

Source: Department for Education, GCE AS and A level subject content for computer science, April 2014, reference DFE-00359-2014. Read 31 October 2026.

AQA or OCR

What is the difference between AQA and OCR A level Computer Science?

Both put 80 per cent in exams and 20 per cent in a project. They part company on where code is written in the exam, and on who can enter at all.

AQA 7517 and OCR H446 compared, from each board's current specification
Feature	AQA 7517 (v1.6, July 2023)	OCR H446 (v3.0, April 2026)
Exam papers	Paper 1 on screen, 2 hours 30 minutes, 40 per cent; Paper 2 written, 2 hours 30 minutes, 40 per cent	Components 01 and 02, both written, 2 hours 30 minutes each, 40 per cent each
Programming in the exam	In an Electronic Answer Document, working with a pre-released Skeleton Program	On paper; any pseudocode style whose meaning "could be reasonably inferred by a competent programmer"
Calculators	Not stated in the summary we read	"(no calculators allowed)" on both written papers
Project	Non-exam assessment, 75 marks, 20 per cent	Programming project, 70 marks, 20 per cent
Languages	C#, Java, Python (not Python 2), VB.Net	Project in Python, C family, Java, Visual Basic, PHP or Delphi, with "a suitable graphical interface"
Private candidates	"These specifications are not available to private candidates."	"Private candidates may enter for OCR assessments."
Teaching time	Not stated in the pages we read	Total qualification time and guided learning time of 360 hours

For a student at school

The school has already chosen. Find the board on the school's course information or exam timetable, then go to the matching page: AQA 7517 help or OCR H446 help.

For the 20 per cent project at either board, see A level Computer Science coursework help, which sets out where the marks are and what the boards say about AI.

For a private or home-educated candidate

The board may be decided for you. AQA's specification says plainly that it is not available to private candidates. OCR's says private candidates may enter, must be based in the UK, and must find an approved centre willing to host them; it adds that the centre "may charge for this facility" and recommends arranging it "early in the course".

Ask any centre how it will handle the 20 per cent programming project before agreeing an entry; the exams alone are not the whole qualification.

Sources: AQA 7516/7517 specification, version 1.6, sections 1 and 7.8; OCR H446 specification, version 3.0, sections 1, 3, 4 and 5. Cambridge 9618, taken in many international schools, is a separate qualification covered on our Cambridge A level Computer Science page.

The maths

Do you need maths for A level Computer Science?

Some, and the amount has a legal floor. The DfE content says every accredited specification "must contain a minimum of 10% mathematics", and names three topics.

Boolean algebra

Expressions in AND, OR and NOT, simplified with laws such as De Morgan's. It is the algebra of logic gates and of every if statement with more than one condition.

Complexity of algorithms

Comparing how running time or memory grows with input size, written in Big O notation. The DfE marks this topic as A level only "due to its advanced nature".

Number bases

Binary, hexadecimal and decimal, signed and unsigned integers, fixed and floating point. The DfE calls these Level 2 concepts applied in a Level 3 context.

A level Maths is not required by the boards

Neither specification we read requires A level Maths to take A level Computer Science. The maths both boards assess is the list above, which OCR lists again as topics "counted as Level 2 (or higher) mathematics", while saying candidates will be "expected to apply the skills in a Level 3 context".

Schools and universities set their own entry requirements, so check those separately.

Where students actually struggle

In our view, the hard part is rarely the arithmetic. It is the reasoning: why a binary search halves the work, why a two's complement byte can be negative, why two Boolean expressions are equal. Those are the habits the worked examples below practise.

Students taking A level Maths alongside will meet logarithms there, which is where the log in O(n log n) comes from.

Sources: DfE subject content, annex on mathematical skills; OCR H446 specification, section 5c, Mathematical skills.

Worked examples, written by us

What does A level Computer Science reasoning look like?

Three original problems, one from each of the DfE's maths topics, worked in full. None is from an AQA or OCR paper.

1. One byte, two meanings

What is 10110110 in decimal? As an unsigned byte: 128 + 32 + 16 + 4 + 2 = 182, which is B6 in hex. As 8-bit two's complement the top bit is worth minus 128, so the value is minus 128 + 54 = minus 74. Check: 182 minus 256 is minus 74. The bits never changed; only the agreed meaning did.

2. Simplify the condition

Simplify (A AND B) OR (A AND NOT B). Factor out A: A AND (B OR NOT B). B OR NOT B is always true, so the whole expression is just A. In code, if (a and b) or (a and not b) can become if a. A truth table with four rows confirms it.

3. How many guesses?

At most how many comparisons does binary search need on 1,000,000 sorted items? Each comparison halves what is left. Two to the power 19 is 524,288, too small; two to the power 20 is 1,048,576, enough. So at most 20, against up to 1,000,000 for a linear search. That gap is O(log n) against O(n).

Example 3 in Python (ours)Python

def binary_search(items, target):
    """Return the index of target in sorted items, or -1.
    Also return how many comparisons were made."""
    low, high = 0, len(items) - 1
    comparisons = 0
    while low <= high:
        mid = (low + high) // 2
        comparisons += 1
        if items[mid] == target:
            return mid, comparisons
        if items[mid] < target:
            low = mid + 1
        else:
            high = mid - 1
    return -1, comparisons

data = list(range(0, 2_000_000, 2))   # 1,000,000 sorted even numbers
print(binary_search(data, 1_999_998))  # last item: found in at most 20 comparisons

Run it and the comparison count comes back at or under 20. Change the list to ten million items and the bound rises to 24, not to ten times as many. Students learn more from changing the input and predicting the count than from reading the function.

A practice set written by Modern Age Coders
Question (ours)	Answer	The reasoning
Convert hexadecimal 3F to decimal	63	3 sixteens are 48, plus 15
What is 11111111 as 8-bit two's complement?	Minus 1	Minus 128 plus 127
Simplify NOT(NOT A) OR (A AND B)	A	Double negation gives A; A OR (A AND B) absorbs to A
Two nested loops, each running n times: what order of time?	O(n squared)	n repetitions of n steps
Maximum binary search comparisons on 1,000 sorted items	10	Two to the power 10 is 1,024
How many different patterns can 12 bits hold?	4,096	Two to the power 12

Choosing a tutor

What should I look for in an A level Computer Science tutor?

Our checklist, which applies to us as much as anyone. The first question is the board; the last is the project.

Ask which board and specification code the tutor will teach to: 7517 and H446 examine the same core in different ways.
For AQA, ask whether they will work with the Preliminary Material and Skeleton Program in the board's language your school uses.
For OCR, ask how they will practise writing code on paper, in pseudocode a marker can follow.
Ask how they teach the maths topics, Boolean algebra, complexity and number bases, not only programming.
Ask where their line is on the project. The answer should be that they teach method and never write, edit or debug the student's own project code.
Ask for a free first lesson on a topic the student finds hard, and judge the reasoning, not the slides.

Our line on the project

We teach how to analyse a problem, design, test and evaluate, using our own example projects. We do not write, edit, debug or review any part of a student's assessed project.

The detail of what each board allows, including on AI tools, is on our coursework help page.

What we do not promise

A grade, a university offer or a mark on any component. We teach the subject and the exam technique; the result is the student's.

Teaching in every language. We teach in Python and introduce the board's pseudocode conventions; a student whose school uses C# or Java for AQA should tell us at the start.

Across two years

From Year 12 to the summer of Year 13

The order we teach in, built from the DfE core. Projects usually start in Year 12 and finish in Year 13; your school sets the dates.

Four stages for A level Computer Science, our plan
When	Stage	Secure when
Autumn of Year 12	1. Programming fluency	Writes and tests functions, lists, dictionaries and files without help
Spring of Year 12	2. Data and its representation	Converts bases, explains two's complement and floating point, designs a simple database
Year 12 into Year 13	3. Algorithms and complexity	Traces and writes searches, sorts and graph algorithms, and compares their Big O
Year 13	4. Papers and paradigms	Answers full papers in the board's format; explains object-oriented and functional ideas

Arriving without GCSE Computer Science

It is possible, but the first term needs extra programming time. Our Python for teens course closes that gap.

Olympiad-minded students can try the British Informatics Olympiad.

After the A level

Students going on to computing degrees often continue with data structures and algorithms.

Lessons lighten around mocks and the exam season.

All related courses

Courses for sixth-form computer scientists

The A level itself, the skills under it, and what follows.

I

The qualification

Years 12 and 13

UK / LCSU / 01

A level Computer Science, AQA and OCR

Both boards, in Python, with paper practice.

Open the syllabus

UK / LCSU / 02

Cambridge 9618

For international schools on Cambridge.

Open the syllabus

UK / LCSU / 03

IB Computer Science

For diploma students instead of A levels.

Open the syllabus

II

Underneath

Programming and algorithms

UK / LCSU / 04

Python for teens

Fluency first, from the beginning.

Open the syllabus

UK / LCSU / 05

Problem solving and DSA

Data structures and algorithms in practice.

Open the syllabus

UK / LCSU / 06

Java for teens

For AQA students whose school uses Java.

Open the syllabus

III

Alongside and after

Maths and university

UK / LCSU / 07

A level maths

Logarithms, proof and the maths behind complexity.

Open the syllabus

UK / LCSU / 08

University DSA

The next step for computing degrees.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Live code, in the board's format

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Our teachers work from India; India time is four and a half hours ahead of UK time in summer and five and a half in winter, and every lesson is booked in UK time.

After school

The usual slot in Years 12 and 13.

Weekend morning

Long enough for a full paper.

Holidays

Revision blocks before mocks and summer exams.

Code you run

Every idea written and run in Python during the lesson.

Board format

On-screen practice for AQA, on-paper pseudocode for OCR.

Maths topics

Boolean algebra, complexity and bases taught as reasoning.

Project method

Taught on our examples; your project stays yours.

Group or 1-on-1

A batch of 15 to 20 at one stage, or a teacher for one student.

No promises

We teach; grades and offers are the student's.

Student work

Projects our students built

Work made in our classes, none of it assessed coursework. More on student labs.

AI and ML

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A chatbot that answers mathematics and programming questions, built and deployed by a student.

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A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.

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Fees

Fees for A level Computer Science

One monthly fee, shown in the currency we use for UK families, with nothing to sign for the year. The first lesson is free.

Free first class

USD 0

no card required

A lesson on a topic the student finds hard
An honest view of where they stand
A phone number is enough

Book it

Group batch

USD 100

a month, billed in US dollars

15 to 20 students at one stage
One teacher through Years 12 and 13
Board-format paper practice
Project method on our examples

Start here

One to one

USD 150

a month, billed in US dollars

One student, one teacher
Paced to the school's board and dates
Useful for a private candidate

Enquire

What families say

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews

From parents and students on our Google profile, unedited.

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★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."

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★★★★★

"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."

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Student

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"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."

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Parent of Dhairya

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"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."

Sonu Goyal

Parent

★★★★★

"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."

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A level Computer Science questions

What students and parents ask

What do you study in A level Computer Science?

The DfE core shared by every board: programming, data structures, data representation, algorithms and their efficiency, databases, systems software, architecture, networks, programming paradigms and the wider issues of digital technology, with at least 10 per cent mathematics.

Is AQA or OCR A level Computer Science harder?

Neither board publishes a comparison and we will not invent one. AQA sets its programming paper on screen with a pre-released Skeleton Program; OCR sets two written papers with code in pseudocode. Some students prefer one format to the other.

Do I need A level Maths for A level Computer Science?

The AQA and OCR specifications we read do not require it. Every specification must contain at least 10 per cent maths: Boolean algebra, complexity of algorithms and number bases, applied at A level standard.

Can I take A level Computer Science as a private candidate?

With OCR, yes, if you are based in the UK and an approved centre agrees to host you; the centre may charge. AQA says its 7517 specification is not available to private candidates.

How is AQA A level Computer Science assessed?

Paper 1 is a 2 hour 30 minute on-screen exam worth 40 per cent, Paper 2 a 2 hour 30 minute written exam worth 40 per cent, and the non-exam assessment is 75 marks and 20 per cent.

How is OCR A level Computer Science assessed?

Two written papers, Computer systems and Algorithms and programming, each 2 hours 30 minutes and 40 per cent with no calculators, plus a 70-mark programming project worth 20 per cent.

Which programming language should I use?

The one your school uses for the exam. AQA supports C#, Java, Python and VB.Net; OCR accepts several languages for the project. We teach in Python and introduce each board's conventions.

Will you help with my NEA or programming project?

We teach project method on our own examples. We never write, edit, debug or review any part of a student's assessed project.

When are lessons?

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. All times are in UK time.

Is there a free trial lesson?

Yes. The first lesson is free, on a topic the student finds hard, and afterwards we tell you honestly what we saw.

Related pages

More for A level computer scientists

The board doors, the project, and the routes around them.

AQA A level Computer Science 7517

The on-screen paper and the Skeleton Program.

OCR A level Computer Science H446

Two written papers and a free-choice project.

A level Computer Science coursework

Where the project marks are, and AI rules.

Cambridge A level Computer Science

The 9618 route in international schools.

CCEA Software Systems Development

The Northern Ireland A level route.

Coding classes in the UK

Our hub for every UK page.

Related pages in this guide

Part of the guide: UK university admissions: maths tests and computing applications

Computer science applications

Admissions tests and interviews

More guides: UK maths exam boards and specification codes · UK maths year by year, Reception to Year 11 · UK selective school maths tests: 7+, 11+, 13+ and 16+ · UK maths enrichment, competitions and able pupils

Start here

Book a free A level lesson

Tell us your board, your year and the topic that worries you most. We teach that topic, live, and then tell you what we saw.

Reading first? Each course page has its syllabus, and how we teach explains our method.

WhatsApp us · +91 91233 66161 · connect@modernagecoders.com

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Three courses for A level Computer Science

A level Computer Science, AQA and OCR

Python for teens

Problem solving and data structures

What does every A level Computer Science course cover?

Why the core matters to a tutor

What the core leaves to boards

What is the difference between AQA and OCR A level Computer Science?

For a student at school

For a private or home-educated candidate

Do you need maths for A level Computer Science?

Boolean algebra

Complexity of algorithms

Number bases

A level Maths is not required by the boards

Where students actually struggle

What does A level Computer Science reasoning look like?

1. One byte, two meanings

2. Simplify the condition

3. How many guesses?

What should I look for in an A level Computer Science tutor?

Our line on the project

What we do not promise

From Year 12 to the summer of Year 13

Arriving without GCSE Computer Science

After the A level

Courses for sixth-form computer scientists

The qualification

A level Computer Science, AQA and OCR

Cambridge 9618

IB Computer Science

Underneath

Python for teens

Problem solving and DSA

Java for teens

Alongside and after

A level maths

University DSA

Live code, in the board's format

Code you run

Board format

Maths topics

Project method

Group or 1-on-1

No promises

Projects our students built

NutriLife

Misti

GuardianX

SkyCast

Fees for A level Computer Science

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews

What students and parents ask

What do you study in A level Computer Science?

Is AQA or OCR A level Computer Science harder?

Do I need A level Maths for A level Computer Science?

Can I take A level Computer Science as a private candidate?

How is AQA A level Computer Science assessed?

How is OCR A level Computer Science assessed?

Which programming language should I use?

Will you help with my NEA or programming project?

When are lessons?

Is there a free trial lesson?

More for A level computer scientists

AQA A level Computer Science 7517

OCR A level Computer Science H446

A level Computer Science coursework

Cambridge A level Computer Science

CCEA Software Systems Development

Coding classes in the UK

Related pages in this guide

Computer science applications

Admissions tests and interviews

Book a free A level lesson

Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo

Keep exploring Modern Age Coders

More maths tuition

Learn more

From the blog

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