We are thrilled to announce that Ukie’s Digital Schoolhouse powered by PlayStation programme, will receive £200,000 from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as announced today by Creative Industries Minister Margot James at Dudley College.
DCMS is providing £200,000 over the next few months to accelerate the growth of the programme to reach even more schools across the country. This government funding will enable the programme to expand from 34 to 50 Schoolhouses by September 2019, reaching an additional 7000 pupils in next academic year alone.
DCMS funding will also help address the shortage of teachers capable of teaching the new computing curriculum, in addition to inspiring children and young people to follow routes into the creative and digital workforce. Shahneila Saeed, programme director and head of education at Ukie said:
“We’re thrilled that DCMS have recognised the programme’s impact by injecting vital funds to accelerate the growth of the programme. We’ll continue to provide inspiring lessons and workshops for 25,000 pupils next year - improving their knowledge and unlocking the potential in every child.”
Digital Schoolhouse has come a long way in the last four years. Originally seed-funded by the Mayor of London’s Schools Excellence Fund (LSEF), the programme had 9 Schoolhouses in 2014. In 2016, PlayStation then joined as lead partner and triggered the programme’s roll-out across the UK, enabling us to reach the 34 schools, colleges and universities in our network today.
From Coventry to Cambridge, Newcastle to Northern Ireland, we’ve improved the digital skills of over 31,000 students and supported over 5000 teachers in the new computing curriculum so far. Moving forward, these crucial government funds will have a monumental impact on the provision of computing education available to thousands more pupils and teachers across the country.
Each Schoolhouse is based in a school, college or university environment, and aims to work with a growing network of local primary and secondary teachers to deliver creative and cross-curricular computing lessons using play-based learning. DSH workshops put theory into practice and help teachers to embed their ongoing personalised support and continuing professional development (CPD) provided by the programme. This teaching and learning model is a proven success and these funds will help us to reach even more students like Sam, a Yr 7 pupil and participant of DSH workshop at St John Fisher Catholic Voluntary Academy:
“Having Mr Ward explain about computer science using magic made it much easier to understand. I would recommend that all primary school pupils (and their teachers!) get involved in the Digital Schoolhouse project if they can - you learn lots and it’s so much fun!”
DCMS joins PlayStation, SEGA, Warwickshire County Council, Ubisoft, Scirra and TeacherGaming in sponsoring the programme this year. Their backing is a great contribution to the already outstanding support we continue to embrace from the Video Games and EdTech community. With support continuing to rally around DSH, we are one step closer to revolutionising computer education.
Interested in sponsoring the Digital Schoolhouse programme? Please get in touch.