Interactive Amplify sits at the Interactive row and Amplify column of the PICRAT grid. Below: real Computing lessons for Grades 9 and 10 (KS4, Years 10 and 11, ages 14 to 16) that sit in Interactive Amplify, plus anti-examples that look like it but sit elsewhere.
Grade 9 predict, run and check: tracing eight Python snippets in Replit
Year 10 GCSE Computer Science students are reading code with loops and conditionals, the point where predictions start going wrong in useful ways. The teacher shares a Replit project of eight short Python snippets through the school-agreed accounts used for KS4 computing. The routine is fixed: read the snippet, fill in a trace table for it in your book, write the predicted output, then run it, and if the prediction missed, write one sentence on why. Snippet five hides an off-by-one error in a range and snippet seven changes a list while looping over it, both chosen because confident predictions fail on them. Students who finish all eight write one snippet of their own designed to catch out a partner's prediction, which previews next lesson.
Grade 9 pseudocode-to-Python translations compared on a class Padlet
The teacher gives three short algorithms in OCR Exam Reference Language: a FOR loop that totals ten numbers, a WHILE loop that rejects ages outside 11 to 18, and a function that returns the larger of two values. Students translate each into Python in Replit, run it with test values, and paste the working code into that algorithm's column on a class Padlet set to school login. After each algorithm the teacher picks two translations that work in different ways and one that fails a test case, and the students who wrote them talk the class through their choices. Students finish by rewriting one of their translations using an idea they saw in a classmate's version. Replit is used on accounts the school has agreed, and code is shared through the Padlet rather than published.
Tools: Replit, Padlet Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
Grade 10 bug hunt: syntax and logic errors in a Python average function
The teacher posts a 15-line Python function on a class Padlet that should return the average of a list of test scores but contains four planted errors: a missing colon, = used instead of == in a condition, a loop over range(len(scores) - 1) that skips the last score, and a total that is reset inside the loop. Each student posts one bug to the syntax errors or logic errors column, giving the line number and a one-line explanation of what would happen when the code runs. The teacher watches the columns fill, notices which bug nobody has posted, usually the reset total, and asks the class to trace the loop by hand for a three-item list. The class then fixes each bug in order while the teacher edits the code live and runs it.
Grade 10 sticky-note critique of a small office LAN diagram in FigJam
The teacher puts a diagram of a small office network into a FigJam board: eight PCs and a printer on one switch, a wireless access point with no password, and a router to the internet with no firewall. Each student adds one sticky note beside the part of the diagram they think is weakest, naming the problem (for example a single point of failure, an open wireless network or no protection from outside traffic) and the risk it creates. The teacher zooms out to show where the notes have clustered and which parts nobody has criticised, and asks students to explain the gaps. Each student then adds a second sticky in a different colour proposing one fix, and the class uses FigJam's voting tool to rank the fixes the office should make first.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.