"The computing A-level is about how computers work and if you ask anyone how it works they will not be able to tell you," said Doug Abrams, an ICT teacher from Ousedale School in Newport Pagnell, who was one of the first to use the machines in lessons.

(BBC — Tech Know)

Having had some experience with teaching a Computing A-Level (and by experience, I mean sitting in a few classes and helping to describe the basics of DS programming to a group for a couple of weeks), I think he's selling the course a little short (though it might be from a different exam board). I also think the idea of using digging out BBC Micros isn't particularly practical, but a lot of today's programming languages do lack the immediacy of programming back in the days of Acorn and Sinclair, when every computer came complete with a BASIC interpreter and children spent many an idle hour issuing drawing commands to draw obscene things on the screen.

However, a similar simple coding environment exists right now, on every computer running a HTML5-compliant browser.

The <canvas> element allows you create a 'screen' on a web page of arbitrary dimensions, and through a JavaScript interface, it lets you draw lines, curves, rectangles, circles, and access each individual pixel in the canvas display.

So rather than forcing students the hardships of the BBC Micro, why not give them a grounding in JavaScript and allow them to run riot in the browser? Just as much fun, a little more forgiving, and actually useful in the real world!

(admittedly, I am currently building a recreating of BBC Mode 7, so I can appreciate playing with the retro machines. Though if we really want to get tough, we should try and get them producing something for the Atari 2600…)