Want to know more about code club?
Rik Cross tells us more about the rise in popularity of Code Clubs, and how you can get involved, here in Leeds!
Code Club
Founded in 2012, Code Club is an international volunteer network which aim to give every child the opportunity to learn to code. They offer free volunteer-led after school clubs and teacher training sessions in the UK, alongside project materials and a volunteering framework to support Code Clubs in 80 countries around the world.
Code Club works to give children aged 9-11 an outlet to build and share their ideas, so they can learn to engage actively in creating technology, rather than just being passive consumers.
In the UK alone, the organisation have helped to teach over 75,000 children through Code Clubs held across the country in schools, libraries and community centres from Aberdeen to Truro.
Code Club also offer training sessions for primary school teachers, which are delivered by computer science experts. The aim is that this training will help to ensure teachers feel confident, excited and prepared to teach the Computing curriculum.
The Code Club community is constantly growing, and there are a number of ways that you can get involved:
Volunteering
Volunteering with Code Club is fun and rewarding, and requires a commitment of just an hour a week. Code Club provide everything that volunteers need to run their club, including online training, learning materials and certificates.
Code Club’s projects are easy to follow, giving children the opportunity to learn to make games, websites and animations using Scratch, HTML, CSS and Python. The projects gradually introduce coding concepts to allow children to build their knowledge incrementally over the course of a term, meaning there’s also no need for the adult running the session to be a computing expert.
Code Club work with passionate individuals who are keen to share their enthusiasm with the next generation. They also collaborate with businesses, such as Bloomberg and Morgan Stanley, to encourage their employees to volunteer with Code Club. Code Club volunteers come from all walks of life, including parents, business leaders, tech-industry experts and teachers. There’s always demand for new volunteers to help set up new Code Clubs around the country.
Partnerships & Funding
Code Club’s core belief is that every child should have the chance to learn to code no matter what their background. The organisation have therefore developed partnerships with a range of different organisations, from multinational technology companies to new regional start ups. Whilst no two partnerships are the same, every organisation Code Club work with is guaranteed to share their passion for making coding accessible as well as being open to exploring creative ways of working together.
In November 2015, Code Club joined forces with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in a merger that enables both organisations to help many more young people learn how to build their ideas with code. You can read more about this on our blog.
Growing Globally
Soon after Code Club took off in the UK, requests started coming from people around the world who wanted to start up Code Club in their country. After setting up a website for the Code Club international community, over 500 clubs have been registered in 76 countries outside the UK, and the Code Club projects have been translated into 16 languages. As Code Club believes that every child in the world should have the chance to learn to code, the movement is now actively expanding to new territories.
To find out more about becoming part of the Code Club community, visit www.codeclub.org.uk, or get in touch with our team at hello@codeclub.org.uk.
