TEALS for schools
The mission of TEALS is to increase access to high quality computing education for students who are underserved or underrepresented in computing.
We are no longer accepting applications for TEALS schools. Please contact teals@bcs.uk if you have any questions about the TEALS programme.
To help with this mission we are looking for schools in England to join the 2024-25 cohort.
Participating schools will need to:
- Already offer computing at KS3, offer computer science GCSE or have ambition to
- Serve an area of priority need (higher FSM) and/or students underrepresented in computing
- Be committed to enriching and enhancing their computing curriculum
- Have at least one computing teacher committed to developing their subject knowledge
- Aspire to increase the number of students studying computing and improving attainment
BCS supports schools participating by helping to recruit volunteers from industry, conducting Enhanced DBS checks and training to prepare volunteers to go into schools, and assisting you and your volunteers to work as a team for you and your students.
Benefits to schools include:
- A more diverse delivery team through the range of TEALS volunteers
- Teachers adjusting their schemes of work to include shared contextual content
- Increased dynamics and flexibility in delivering lessons through effect deployment of volunteers to support targeted groups of students
- An increased feeling of ‘family’ in the classroom with a teaching team collaborating together
- Enhanced enrichment opportunities through links to the volunteer’s employer
Whilst we want to keep financial and resource commitments as minimal as possible for schools, there are some requirements which are necessary for successful operation of the programme:
- Senior leadership support for the computing department to engage in TEALS
- Computing teacher time to participate in training, planning with volunteers, providing feedback and data to support evaluation
- Computing team time for planning and CPD, to maximise use of volunteers
- Identify appropriate lessons where volunteer engagement can take place through analysis of existing timetables and volunteer availability
- Ensure volunteers are given an induction to your school, your department and provide access to schemes of work to enable volunteers to prepare and maximise their impact
- Make arrangements to accommodate volunteers at your school on a regular basis
- Capture TEALS classes in action and share best practice with the wider TEALS community.
If you think TEALS could help fast-track your vision for computing, do consider applying. Spaces are limited, and we’re eager to onboard schools to begin the search for volunteers as soon as possible.
