David Cameron visited a Croydon school to announce plans for specialist training for maths and science teachers that he claimed would boost the borough's burgeoning technology sector.
The Prime Minister took a tour of Harris City Academy Crystal Palace yesterday morning, when he quizzed pupils on their school lives at the launch of a Government push towards teaching digital skills such as coding in schools.
He suggested the £67m scheme, which will lead to 17,500 maths and physics teachers receiving specialist training, the establishment of a national college for digital learning and the introduction of a new GCSE in computer science, would benefit Croydon's flourishing technology start-ups.
He said: "We need to make sure we are producing enough school leavers and graduates that understand how to write computer code and who can be the app creators of the future.
"It is absolutely vital what we are doing today and it should start at a relatively young age, which is what is happening."
The school, in Maberley Road, was chosen as the setting for the Prime Minister's announcement because he said it provided shining example to the nation's schools.
Prime Minister David Cameron met pupils at Harris City Academy Crystal Palace yesterday
Mr Cameron said: "All credit to this extraordinary school and their great results, but let's make the extraordinary ordinary right across the country."
Last month, shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt claimed rising numbers of unqualified teachers at Croydon schools was a threat to quality of education in the borough.
But the Prime Minister cited the success of schools such as Harris City Academy - where nearly a third of teachers do not have formal qualified status - as proof his Government was right to allow academies greater freedom over who they employ.
He said: "I'm a great believer we should trust great headteachers that are running great schools about who they employ and how best to employ them.
"And there are people who have got great experience of outside life, sometimes enormous experience of subjects like science and other topics, who are brilliant teachers."
Year 7 pupils questioned by the Prime Minister gave their school a glowing endorsement, although their views appeared led more by their stomachs than their grades.
Asked what the best thing about their school was, several replied in unison: "The food."
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