AQA 7517 4.10.3: Database design and normalisation techniques
The free BugBot lessons that teach this point, a robot to try it on, and the past-paper questions that test it.
What it covers
At GCSE you split a table because a robot's colour was repeated in every run. Normalisation is the formal version of that idea: a step-by-step method for arranging data into tables so that every fact is stored once, in the right table. The steps are called normal forms, and the target at A level is third normal form (3NF).
- What goes wrong without it
- Functional dependency
- Unnormalised form
- First normal form
- Second normal form
- Third normal form
- Why normalise, and when not to
Or do it in the simulator, with tasks that mark themselves
Lessons that teach it
- A11.3 Normalisation to third normal form Databases and big data
Functional dependencies, update anomalies, and taking a flat score sheet through first, second and third normal form. - A11.10 Project: the run database Databases and big data
Design, normalise, build and fill a database of robot runs, log live runs in transactions, report with one joined query and export the…
Try it on a robot
The task from A11.3 Normalisation to third normal form, running here. Change the program and press Run.
The specification is AQA's own document; this page says which of our lessons teach point 4.10.3 and is not endorsed by the board.