What is TEALS?

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is delighted to be working with Microsoft and The Hg Foundation to bring TEALS to secondary schools in the UK. The program helps teachers, particularly non-specialists, by pairing them with volunteers from industry who can boost subject knowledge in the classroom, enrich student learning, and accelerate the professional development of computing teachers.

TEALS has been running in the United States since 2009 and has helped over 100,000 students receive computer science learning pathways. It is also operating in Canada, Mexico, Israel, Colombia, Kenya and India.

Volunteers help departments to increase their computing capacity and advance teacher’s subject knowledge and capabilities, creating a lasting impact. The support volunteers provide is planned and under the direction of the teacher with each volunteer supporting a class, each week, across a school year.

To date we’ve worked with 10 schools and 30 volunteers across five areas of England – Manchester, Walsall, Reading, London, and Torbay and the insights we’ve gained from this first year of the programme is supporting our expansion of TEALS to more schools, volunteers, locations, and regions of the UK.

We’re building a community of TEALS teachers and volunteers in the 2024-2025 academic year and we’re looking forward to welcoming more schools and volunteers who are passionate about computing to the programme, helping to extend the reach and impact of TEALS in the UK.

Get in touch banner

For more information email teals@bcs.uk

TEALS for schools

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:

Diversity

A more diverse delivery team through the range of TEALS volunteers

Collaboration

An increased feeling of ‘family’ in the classroom with a teaching team collaborating together

Content

Teachers can adjust their schemes of work to include shared contextual content

Opportunity

Enhanced enrichment opportunities through links to the volunteer’s employer

Flexibility

Increased dynamics and flexibility in delivering lessons through effect deployment of volunteers to support targeted groups of students

Download our brochure

Find out more about the TEALS UK Programme by downloading our brochure below

Download

TEALS for volunteers

Volunteers are the backbone of TEALS. They enrich students’ understanding of computing, provide real-world context for learning, and bring to life a range of career possibilities.

Benefits to volunteers include:

Professional development

Continued Professional development sessions ran by BCS

TEALS around the world

Read more about TEALS in the US and around the world

Read more

Expand your CV

Gain valuable experience to expand your CV

Download our brochure

Find out more about the TEALS UK Programme by downloading our brochure below

Download

Inspire

Inspire and Influence the next generation

I'm interested in volunteering

TEALS for volunteers

I'm a teacher in a school

Teals for schools

Hear from TEALS teachers

“Since establishing the TEALS programme within our school, we have found that student engagement has increased within the Computing classes being supported by our professionals. The level of technological cognizance the volunteers bring into the classroom, along with enthusiasm and experiences of how Computing is applied to real-world scenarios, mean that this invaluable resource has inspired our learners and provided educators with highly-skilled, professionals who can complement and work alongside existing pedagogy.”

Matt Ryder, Joseph Leckie Academy

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