Microsoft And CAS To Train Up The Minds Of Tomorrow

Microsoft has announced a £334,000 investment to help train up to 50,000 teachers in the new computing curriculum.

The IT giant has partnered with Computing at Schools group (CAS) to help teachers motivate a new generation towards IT and computer science.

CAS is holding a series of 'Back to School' training sessions to demonstrate how coding and computer science can engage the touch screen generation.

Two training courses will be available as part of the 'Countdown to Computing' programme – one for primary and one for secondary school pupils. Across the country, CAS hubs will deliver face-to-face training at 2,500 local events and flexible training via Skype will also be available.

The scheme aims to provide training for around one in every five primary school teachers in the UK.

We saw this week how one crafty five-year old managed to crack his dad's Xbox, and Microsoft's investment comes as part of a widespread realisation that young minds are the tech innovators of the future.

"In 2009 a 9-year old boy from Singapore built an app that has been downloaded more than 800,000 times, in 2013, a seven year old girl from Philadelphia became the youngest person to build a mobile game app," said Michel Van der Bel, UK managing director of Microsoft.

"If we want the next success story to be based in Britain then we need teachers who have the right skills and the confidence to inspire, support and enable them to do so."

CAS is a grassroots organisation chaired by Simon Peyton-Jones from Microsoft Research Cambridge and has been the government partner for teacher training through the Network of Teaching Excellence in Computing Science (NoE) and the Barefoot Computing programmes, both of which are run by CAS and funded by the Department for Education.