This week, more than 200 teachers in England have been the first to graduate with a National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) teaching qualification.
The Computer Science Accelerator Programme aims to address the shortage of qualified GCSE computer science teachers in the UK. Google has supported the course, providing practical mentoring and engineers, and Google.org has invested £1m to help create free online training courses for the programme.
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John Feleppa, head of department at Harrow High School, said: “The Computer Science Accelerator Programme not only made me feel more confident to teach the Key Stage 4 computer science curriculum but means I can now return to the classroom with lots of fresh ideas to inspire and motivate my students.
I would highly recommend this course to other teachers, not only are all the online courses free, but the face-to-face courses were bursary-supported, which covered my time out of the classroom.”
Not only are all the online courses free, but the face-to-face courses were bursary-supported, which covered my time out of the classroom.
– John Feleppa, Harrow High School
The NCCE is funded by the Department for Education, and is run by a consortium including STEM Learning, Raspberry Pi Foundation, and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
More information about the Computer Science Accelerator programme is available at www.teachcomputing.org