Preamble

On 12th January 2025, the inaugural PwC masterclass session was held in LBTS. The session featured two PwC staff:

1. Richard Boadu – Software Engineer/Financial Services (PwC)

2. Ruchi Bajoria – DevOps Lead (PwC)

The session lasted for one hour 15 minutes, and introduced LBTS students taking A level computer science, Level 3 BTEC IT and Digital T-levels to:

1. The client’s project brief/business problem – a “live” industry problem for the students 

2. Jira Agile – a project management software designed to support Agile Scrum methodology.

3. Microsoft Azure DevOps accounts – linked to Jira Agile; great for project tracking and team collaboration.

Brief Chronology

In December 2024, Day-One charity approached LBTS with an offer of a collaboration between PwC and LBTS which was to be managed by Day-One. The aim of the collaboration is aligned to Day-One’s mission which is to improve the career progression of black, female or low-household-income school leavers by helping them to take their first steps into rewarding and well-paid careers.

In order to achieve the above objective, it was thought that it was important for the students to have practical industry experiences during the PwC masterclass project including:

1. Getting the students to execute a “Live” tech industry type project using industry tools e.g. Jira Agile tools.

2. Various tech experts coming to teach/speak to the students at LBTS biweekly.

3. Students visit tech firms such as PwC, Google, IBM, Amazon etc.

4. Paid placement of students with tech firms for greater practical knowledge and networking.

5. Degree apprenticeships in tech firms including PwC etc.

In January 2025, Several stakeholders’ meetings were held which involved the staff of Day-One, PwC and LBTS. The stakeholders’ meeting helped enormously in fine-tuning the details and methodology for the delivery of the PwC masterclass project. 

And on 5th February 2025, a draft delivery schedule for the masterclass project was produced – which included:

1. Students to work in teams of 5s – each team would include students studying different computing pathways.

2. Dates for the PwC masterclass lectures with live tech expert(s) in attendance at LBTS. Different tech expert(s) are scheduled to attend each session. The start date for the live tech expert masterclass was 12th February 2025.

3. And dates for client (PwC) check-ins with LBTS students (via remote learning) – this mirrors industry practices where teams work across regions/countries. The first check-in date is 26th February 2025.

4. The above dates (in-person and remote learning) would then alternate weekly. 

5. Presentations of the end solution by students to client (PwC staff) where students role-play tech presentations to clients mirroring industry processes.

6. Dates for industry visits/insightful days out to explore early careers/tech roles in industry.

The inaugural PwC masterclass session went ahead as scheduled on 12th February 2025; and by the star of the half term (14/2/2025), some of the students had already provided evidence of the excellent work they did within 2 days of the first session! 

After the remote check-in on 26th February, an IBM staff would be in attendance at LBTS on 5th March 2025.

Great things are happening at LBTS – become a part of us!