Substrings
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can slice a string to create a substring and then use list methods on the substring.
Key learning points
- A substring is a part of a string.
- Slicing can be used to separate a string into substrings.
- ASCII is a character set used to represent all of the characters on a standard American or English keyboard.
Keywords
Substring - part of a string
Slice - the process of extracting a specific substring
ASCII - a character set that represents each character with a unique numerical value
Common misconception
Indexing starts at 1 as that is the location of the first element.
In Python, and many other programming languages, indexing starts at 0.
Teacher tip
This lessons uses iteration to access each item in a string. Pupils may need to revisit the concept of iteration if they are not confident with the concept.
Equipment
Pupils will need access to a device that can edit and run Python programs. Examples in this lesson use the RPF Code Editor https://oak.link/python-editor
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.What is a string in programming?
Q2.How do you determine the length of a string in Python?
Q3.What will this program output?
12word = "Python"
print(word[3]) Code colour
Q4.What will happen if you try to access an index that is greater than or equal to the string length?
Q5.What does the following code print?
12word = "hello"
print(word[-1])Code colour
Q6.What does the following code output?
123word = "hello"
for letter in word:
print(letter)Code colour
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.What is a substring?
Q2.What will the following Python code output?
12word = "HELLO"
print(word[1:4])Code colour
Q3.What is the correct syntax to extract the substring "pin" from "pineapple", which is stored in the variable fruit?
Q4.Which of the following statements about slicing in Python is true?
Q5.How do you check if the substring "apple" is in the string "pineapple"?
Q6.What does the following Python program do?
12char = input("Enter a character: ")
print(ord(char))Code colour
To help you plan your 10 computer science lesson on: Substrings, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 computer science lesson on: Substrings, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 computer science lessons from the Programming: strings and lists unit, dive into the full secondary computer science curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.