Weekend classes for school children from low-income families aimed at advancing STEM education and fundamental coding skills.

10 July 2017: BJSS, the award-winning delivery-focused IT consultancy, today announces that its community investment partnership with Turinglab, an organisation dedicated to tackling the IT skills gap, has launched at Cockburn School in Leeds. The programme teaches fundamental coding skills to school children, aged between 11 and 16, from low-income families.

The BJSS-funded sessions are designed to improve digital skills and increase interest in STEM-based careers. They combine the best of online learning and in-person teaching to provide an engaging learning experience.

The Cockburn School sessions are delivered by Turinglab-trained undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate alumni of the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford. This is the first phase of a wider initiative in which BJSS will fund Turinglab scholarships for children in Leeds, Manchester and Bristol.

Mike Buck, Leeds-based Managing Director at BJSS, said: “As an organisation that prides itself on hiring the best local talent, we recognise that socio-economic circumstances should never be a barrier to opportunity. Our community investment will see BJSS finance 100 yearly scholarships so that children can develop their IT skills. I’m delighted that our partnership with Turinglab is benefiting children from local communities.”

Sam Green, Managing Director, and Co-Founder of Turinglab, said: “We started Turinglab to ensure that children's first steps into coding are fun and creative. Through the BJSS scholarship funding, we are giving children from low-income families the opportunity to develop important digital skills, and the ability to create the future.”

Emma Husband, Assistant Headteacher at Cockburn High School, adds: “Cockburn is committed to ensuring that its students are fully prepared with the skills, aspirations and academic qualifications needed to take them forward in life. We work closely with local and national employers to provide workshops to develop these skills. This programme has given our coding group an excellent opportunity to build expertise that will be essential to the British economy over the next few years. These sessions also provide the opportunity to work with students from local universities, helping our learners to see where these skills can take them.”