A consortium that includes the Raspberry Pi Foundation will run England’s first National Centre for Computing Education.

The £84 million project was announced by chancellor Philip Hammond in last year’s Budget.

In November, the Royal Society warned that computing education was “patchy and fragile”, and £60 million was needed to train the secondary teachers needed to deliver GCSE computer science over the following five years.

As well as the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the consortium that will run the centre includes STEM Learning and the British Computing Society.

The centre will work with the University of Cambridge, while Google will also support the project with a further £1 million.

Enthusiasm for computing

Paul Fletcher, chief executive of the British Computer Society, said: “It is vital that every child in every school has access to world-leading computing education, and this means that every computing teacher has access to the support that they need.

“The subject of computing was only introduced four years ago and is still new for schools, and that’s why it’s important to build on the energy and enthusiasm of the many teachers who are already committed to the success of this subject.”

The DfE said the centre will start working with schools across England later this year, improving teaching and driving up participation in computer science at GCSE and A level. 

It will operate virtually through a national network of up to 40 school-led computing hubs to provide training and resources to primary and secondary schools, and an intensive training programme for secondary teachers without a post A-level qualification in computer science. 

School standards minister Nick Gibb said the centre “will give teachers the subject knowledge and support they need to teach pupils the new computing curriculum”.