A syllabus is a document that outlines the key components of a course, including the topics to be covered, the schedule of classes, assessment methods, required materials, and other important information. It serves as a guide for both instructors and students to understand the expectations and structure of the course.
Welcome to Year one of IB Computer Science! This course is designed to help you build a strong foundation in programming, understand how computer systems work, explore databases, and begin your Internal Assessment (IA) project. You’ll also learn essential theory and develop problem-solving skills through hands-on activities, coding challenges, and system design.
By the end of this year you will:
Build foundational skills in programming, algorithms, and data structures using Python
Understand the core components of computer systems, including hardware, operating systems, and data representation.
Learn how to design, query, and manage databases using SQL and normalization techniques.
Apply computational thinking to solve complex problems through planning, testing, and debugging.
Begin and develop the Internal Assessment (IA): a a deep-exploration of a topic within computing.
Explore how computer networks and data communication enable global connectivity and security.
Your grade for Year 1 will be based on the following summative assessments:
Programming Unit Exam (Week 9)
Covers programming fundamentals, algorithms, and data structures.
Systems Exam (Week 18)
Covers computer hardware, binary, operating systems, logic gates.
Database Unit Exam (Week 28)
Covers relational databases, ER diagrams, normalization, and SQL.
Networks Unit Exam (Week 44)
Covers networking fundamentals, architecture, protocols, and security.
Year-End Assessment (Week 45)
Cumulative assessment covering all major Year 1 topics.
Homework and Practice Work
Regular coding tasks, problem sets, and theory exercises make up 10–15% of your final Year 1 grade.
Every class, you must have material for taking notes. You must also bring your school-issued computer and a charger.
When you are asking a technical question it is important you ask it correctly. Please read and understand this very short guide how to ask a good technical question.
I like to think about questions before answering. Email is an excellent method for this; I share your questions and my answers with the class, anonymously. Sometimes I will add your questions to our FAQ.
This course follows the policies at the American School of Warsaw. The URL to those policies can be found by clicking this url:
There are four broad rules in this classroom:
Academic integrity is an expectation of all members of our school community and is afforded the utmost value by all members of the faculty. The academic reputation of our students and the school in the wider community depend on it. Academic expectations extend to all assessed and non-assessed school work -- formative or summative -- and to all documentation produced for the university and college applications in High School.
It is the expectation at ASW that all work and documentation submitted by students is entirely their own.
Academic integrity means:
citing appropriately those whose work is used in the preparation of school work
completing school work without the input of others whose knowledge of the task might advantage the student unfairly
submitting work for assessment that is representative of the student’s own learning and not that of others, individually or collectively
maintaining a level of confidentiality and personal ownership of one’s own work, both assessed and non-assessed
adhering to ethical and honest practice during examinations and assessments
Academic Misconduct is behavior that contradicts the values and philosophy of academic integrity.
Student Academic Misconduct The IB defines student academic misconduct as “deliberate or inadvertent behavior that has the potential to result in the student, or anyone else, gaining an unfair advantage in one or more components of assessment.” It generally falls into one of the following categories:
Plagiarism: using or copying ideas or work that isn’t your own, without giving credit to the person or source
Collusion: copying or sharing work in situations when students are expected to work independently; includes helping others to plagiarize
Duplication: submitting the same work for more than one task (often in different subjects or years)
Misconduct Before, During, or After an Assessment: behavior that unfairly advantages a student during a test, exam, or in-class assessment; this is often referred to as “cheating”
Inclusion of inappropriate research or data: using data that has been collected unethically and/or using data that has been made up or changed
In addition, as per the Upper School Handbook, absence from any class for the purpose of preparing or studying for another class is not permitted. Skipping an assessment will be considered an act of academic dishonesty and treated as such. A student’s academic integrity will also be questioned if missing assessments or assignments becomes a pattern.
The full Academic Integrity Policy can be found at this link.
Week 1: Programming Fundamentals – Variables, data types, tracing, flowcharts
Week 2: Programming – Substrings, exceptions, debugging
Week 3: Programming Constructs – Sequence, selection
Week 4: Programming Constructs – Loops, modularisation
Week 5: Data Structures – Arrays, lists, stacks, queues
Week 6: Algorithms – Big O, linear & binary search
Week 7: Algorithms – Bubble sort, selection sort, recursion (HL)
Week 8: File Processing & Computational Thinking – File I/O, problem definition
Week 9: Unit Exam – Programming and algorithms
Week 10: October Break
Week 11: Computer Hardware – CPU, GPU, memory (HL: CPU vs GPU)
Week 12: CPU Cycle & Data Representation – Fetch-decode-execute, binary, compression
Week 13: Secondary Storage – Compression, cloud storage (HL: pipelining)
Week 14: Logic & Operating Systems – Logic gates, truth tables, OS basics
Week 15: OS Internals – Scheduling, interrupts, polling (HL: multitasking)
Week 16: HL: Control Systems / SL: Revision
Week 17: HL: Interpreters & Compilers / SL: Revision
Week 18: Semester Review & Mid-Year Assessment
Weeks 19–21: Christmas Break
Week 22: Databases – Schema, ERDs, data types
Week 23: Database Design – Tables, normalization, 3NF
Week 24: SQL – CRUD, joins, update (HL: joins practice)
Week 25: HL: Transactions & Views / SL: SQL practice
Week 26: HL: Alternative Databases / SL: Database review
Week 27: Database Review
Week 28: Unit Exam – Databases
Week 29: IA Introduction – Analysis and planning
Week 30: February Break
Weeks 31–34: IA Development – Coding, testing, debugging
Week 35: IA Interim Submission – Teacher feedback
Weeks 36–37: Revision – Final term review
Week 38: Spring Break
Week 39: Networks – Devices, transmission, topologies (HL: TCP model)
Week 40: Network Architecture – Client-server, P2P (HL: server functions)
Week 41: Data Transmission – Wired/wireless (HL: routing)
Week 42: Network Security – Protocols, attacks (HL: vulnerabilities)
Week 43: Network Review
Week 44: Unit Exam – Networks
Week 45: Year-End Final Assessments
IB CS SL YR1