I’ve Gone & Started a Code Club!

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So it’s probably not a surprise to anyone who knows me that I really love technology! Be it a fitness tracker, the latest phone, or a computer, I’m a bit obsessed with them so when I found out from Mario that I could have the opportunity to teach children about computer Coding in a Code Club, I was really interested in finding out more!

Code Club was founded in 2012 and is a key educational programme which teaches children aged 9-11 years old how to express their ideas using computer code. Each Club is run for free by volunteers who give up an hour of their time each week to go into schools and other places to teach coding. The projects are really easy to follow so you yourself don’t need any previous experience! Each project has a step-by-step guide to follow how to use Scratch, HTML, CSS, and Python by making games, animations and websites. The projects themselves gradually introduce coding so you don’t need to know a lot about it yourself as a volunteer!

The thing that drew me to Code Club was the fact I was a Teaching Assistant before having Mia and I really want to get back into teaching. As my time is quite limited being at stay at home mum, I needed to find something I could do for an hour or so a week and as I would like to learn to code myself, this seemed the perfect way to do it! As I don’t have childcare this term, Mia comes along with me to the sessions and absolutely loves watching the children create their own games and animations so she’s learning too!

The first class I ever taught I was really nervous but I used the lesson as a ‘getting to know you’ session so just let the children play around with Scratch and show me what they could do. Then from the 2^nd lesson on, I let the children work through a worksheet a week and then help each other if they get stuck. I currently have a class of 18 children and they all seem to be really enjoying it and getting a lot from the sessions. After a few sessions, you can see the difference that it’s having on them; the children grow in confidence quickly and love showing off their finished projects!

We currently run the Code Club in 6 week blocks and with year 4’s who use Scratch in their daily lessons already so have a small amount of knowledge about the programme too. It’s a great way for me to learn to Code as well as teaching children how to Code too!

 

You can find more and get involved in Code Club here!