3 ready-to-teach KS3 Computer Science lessons: Year 9 Inside the CPU, with editable slides, lesson plans, worksheets and full answers.

A three-week bridge into Year 10: how instructions are stored and executed, and how code becomes something a CPU can run.

What’s included

• 3 PowerPoint lessons, one per lesson, with photos, click-by-click activities and speaker notes
• Lesson plan pack (Word): objectives and a timed 50-minute plan for every lesson, plus teacher notes
• 3 student worksheets (Word), ready to print or edit
• Answer pack (Word) with answers for every worksheet section

Lessons

1. Von Neumann architecture and the fetch–decode–execute cycle
2. Performance: clock speed, cores and cache
3. Compilers, interpreters, the OS, and a first look at IGCSE (assessed quiz)

Key vocabulary

ALU, control unit, register, FDE cycle, cache, compiler, interpreter

Assessment

Short-answer FDE and performance quiz (L3).

Format

• PowerPoint (.pptx) and Word (.docx), fully editable
• Works in PowerPoint and Google Slides (some animations may look different in Google Slides)
• Written for the English national curriculum for KS3 computing, and builds towards GCSE / IGCSE Computer Science

Photos are from Wikimedia Commons under free licences and are credited on each slide and in LICENSES.txt.

Last updated: November 2026.