3 March 2025
In March we’re introducing a fresh new look to Craig’n’Dave. New logo, new website and new membership options. While modernising the brand is important for first impressions, there is more behind the scenes. We know teaching is a mission. Taking off with a new course, the long journey creating great lessons to landing the good grades is not easy. We choose that mission, not because it is easy, but because it is hard! Not with telescopes and probes, but with our resources and videos, we can navigate the universe of teaching computer science together.
That’s why we’ve adopted a space theme, not only do we think it’s cool for students, but it also resonates with the complexities, awe and wonder of your classrooms; and lets just be honest, Craig and Dave are space nerds too!
In terms of practical changes, existing Craig’n’Dave members will shortly receive a “key” granting you access to the premium resources on our new website. First, you’ll need to create an account, and every teacher in your school can now have their own account on our site: https://craigndave.org Entering your shared key will unlock full access to our new Resource Centre.
In addition, premium crew members will be invited to join our new Facebook group, “Mission Control” that will become the Houston for discussions about using our resources and sharing best practice.
Teachers who are not premium members will also be able to create an account to download free resources, but now we’ll be able to send you new free resources as they become available and keep you better informed what’s happening back at base!
Over the coming months we’ll also be giving more thought as to what it means to be a member of the Craig’n’Dave crew and new benefits that could provide. We can’t wait to welcome you aboard before we embark towards a new frontier!
We’d love to meet you
In 2025 we will be attending the following events:
Computer Science in Schools Conference: Friday 27th June at Staffordshire University where we will be giving a keynote address on the past, present and future of learning programming. Book now: Computer Science in Schools Conference 2025 | STEM
The Festival of Computing: The evolution of the Craig’n’Dave and Friends conference on Wednesday 2nd July at Bromsgrove School. This year we have increased the capacity to 300 delegates. For those coming from afar there is also an opportunity of an evening meal, overnight accommodation and breakfast on the Tuesday night at an additional cost. Places will be limited to 50 residents.
Although we ask for a £20 deposit to secure your seat due to high demand, this is fully refunded if you attend.
Get your tickets here.
CAS Conference: Friday 24th October at Bromsgrove School. Register your interest in attending.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to broaden your subject knowledge
Our new 1-2-minute short format “knowledge byte” videos from David Morgan, aka The Lesson Hacker explore computer science beyond the exam specifications. These videos are ideal for students and teachers who want to broaden their subject knowledge, and they give you a great reason to subscribe to our channel too. Videos released so far include:
- Why can’t we just stick RAM on the CPU?
- Why don’t computers use a different base for numbers?
- How much does it cost to make a CPU?
- What does the random in RAM actually mean?
- Why do SSDs wear out and RAM doesn’t?
- Why are programs so big when the source code is just text?
Why do GPUs get so hot?
- Why does DPI matter?
If you haven’t seen them yet, check out the full series here, and share them with your students too: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCiOXwirraUC_vMTcA-kdQ0ffv3gmv7K_&si=TIo5SbnJ2CDL3j_6
Each month a longer format video will explore a topic in more detail.
OCR course breakdown in Smart Revise
The Smart Revise 2027 course for students starting year 12 in September will have 65 topics instead of the current 20 topics. This enabled us to combine both the AS and full A level into one course with topics for each level of study. In addition, it means teachers and students will have a lot more granularity with topic filtering and task creation. Typically, each old topic has been split into three new topics. Here is an example of what that looks like:
Note, this only affects Smart Revise. There is no change to the specification or course!
Latest Smart Revise release: 28th February
The latest Smart Revise release includes:
- Update to the task marking interface. The question and answer are now on the same tab. Quiz questions show the incorrect answers too, and whitespace in the mark scheme has been reduced to increase space for the text.
- Option to automatically release marks to students for a task when AI marking is selected.
- Updates to the AI marking engine. We have also identified a path for future development to greater accuracy for questions that AI marking frequently marks incorrectly.
- Updates to the messaging around copying tasks to other year groups. Despite what the messages said, this is possible!
AQA A Level remastered videos
SLRs 1 to 9 of our newly remastered AQA A level videos are available on YouTube.
Craig’n’Dave crew members with a premium membership can download all 187 PowerPoints we used to create the videos, even those that haven’t been published on YouTube yet.
