Empower
Educators
Search

Computer Science · GCSE

Data representation
GCSE Computer Science knowledge mat

Everything Is a Number

A photograph, a song and the word 'hello' sit on the same disc. What do they have in common? The five data types the DfE names and why choosing one is a decision, with a figure that draws a one-dimensional array beside a two-dimensional one and puts the index under the box, never in it. Then binary and hexadecimal as one number written twice, with a place-value strip that sums its own bits to 106 and splits itself into the nibbles 6 and A. Then text, sound and graphics, with a bitmap small enough to count: the grid is the file, and the file size is multiplied out of the grid’s own dimensions. Three capacity formulae, a worked file-size calculation that ends by naming which convention it counted in, sixteen terms, and the misconceptions that cost marks.

£3.99All 4 GCSE Computer Science knowledge mats, one landscape sheet each

See every page · part-blurred
  • Landscape A4 PDF
  • the whole sheet shown below, part-blurred
  • instant download

One purchase, all 4 GCSE Computer Science sheets, £3.99 for the set: this one · Algorithms · Logic and systems · Networks and security

One purchase covers the school that buys it. Print it, copy it, hand it round your department. Not for passing to other schools or uploading anywhere.

PDF download, ready straight after payment. Downloading it ends the 14-day right to cancel; a file that is faulty or not as described is always refunded. Refunds

Read before publication by serving senior leaders, in school.

5.0 from 25+ reviews on Google

Schools that have bought from Empower Educators include Nottingham High School, Northampton High School GDST and Sutton Valence School.

Complete your Computer Science

Everything else this site has for Computer Science: Computer Science teaching resources

Cover of Everything Is a Number

£3.99 PDF · instant download

See every page

One landscape A4 page on one part of the GCSE Computer Science course, anchored to the DfE’s own subject content and Ofqual’s subject level conditions rather than a board’s paraphrase, so it holds whichever specification a department follows. It carries data types and data structures, binary and hexadecimal conversion, binary addition and shifts, the representation of text, sound and graphics, and the calculation of data capacity. Then the vocabulary, a worked file size, and the misconceptions that cost marks.

Whether overflow is examined differs between specifications, and the sheet says so rather than teaching it as common ground. Nothing is reproduced from a past paper, a textbook or a specification, and every figure is drawn in code, so nothing on the sheet is licensed from anybody.

Sold by subject: all four Computer Science sheets for one price. A knowledge organiser stores a unit and is revised from afterwards; this is meant to be on the table while the lesson is happening.

Written to
The DfE GCSE subject content for computer science (updated 31 March 2025) and Ofqual’s subject level conditions for qualifications examined from 2022 onwards (Ofqual/19/6472), quoted; no board’s specification, mark scheme or past paper. Every number printed is computed by the figure that prints it
Intended for
computer science teachers. On the desk during the lesson, not a student revision guide
Extent
One landscape A4 sheet · 8 sections

Look inside

Real pages, straight from the PDF

Click any page to see it full size.

Contents

What’s on the sheet

The sections on the sheet, in the order they appear.

01 Every value has a type
02 Binary and hex are one number, written twice
03 Pictures and sound are bits too
04 Capacity: three calculations, all of them multiplication
05 Work out a file size, and say what it is in
06 Glossary
07 Use this mat
08 Common misconceptions
Next: Logic, architecture and systems knowledge mat

Your basket

Nothing in it yet.

Total £0.00

Checkout

Your download is ready straight after payment. Downloading it ends the 14-day right to cancel; a file that is faulty or not as described is always refunded. Refunds