Author: Zoe Davidson

Zoe Davidson

Friendship, kindness, and code: Celebrate World Kindness Day at your Code Club

A friendly hello, making room for someone new, or taking time to help another creator work out why their sprite won’t move — small acts of kindness help make a Code Club a place where everyone feels welcome.

World Kindness Day on Friday 13 November is a chance to celebrate those moments, the friendships that grow around them, and the people who make your club special. It is also an opportunity to get creative, with projects that help young people connect and make something thoughtful for someone else.

Two children sitting at a table, each using a laptop. One girl is wearing headphones and giving a thumbs up, while the other is smiling and looking at her screen. The background features shelves with colorful items.

A place to make friends and be yourself

Friendships can start with a shared love of games, a fun animation, or a laugh when some code does something unexpected. At Code Club, creating alongside others gives young people opportunities to swap ideas, solve problems, and meet people who share their interests.

Every creator brings their own experiences, imagination, and way of learning. As mentors, you help make your club a safe, welcoming space where creators feel comfortable being themselves. Welcoming a new member, noticing someone’s effort, and showing that questions and mistakes are part of learning all help build that sense of belonging.

Invite your creators to help shape that environment. How could they welcome someone new, give encouraging feedback, or help a friend solve a problem with their code? These small acts of kindness can make a big difference to how everyone feels at your club.

Three children laughing together while collaborating on a computer in a classroom setting, with other students visible in the background.

Five projects to share a little kindness

From a friendly check-in to a digital gift, shine a light on kindness in your club with these creative projects. Try one in the week leading up to World Kindness Day, or keep celebrating kindness in the sessions that follow!

Start a conversation with ‘How are you?’

A simple question can open up a connection. In this Scratch project, creators can ask someone how they are in another language and translate their reply. You could invite your club to explore the languages spoken by their friends, families, and community.

‘Try How are you?’

Two cartoon characters engaging in conversation, with one character raising their hand and a speech bubble containing a question mark above them against a pastel background.

Make a thoughtful gift with ‘I made you a book’

In this Scratch project, creators use their skills to make a book with multiple pages, telling a story or sharing facts. Encourage them to design it with someone special in mind. Could they make up an adventure for a friend or fill the pages with a family member’s favourite things?

Try ‘I made you a book’

Check in with ‘How’s your day?’

In this project, creators use a BBC micro:bit to create a mood checker that responds to how someone’s day has been. Creators can choose messages, images, animations, or sounds for different responses. Invite them to think about what might feel encouraging or comforting to the person using their project.

Try ‘How’s your day?’

Three yellow smiley faces representing different emotions: excited with party items, calm with a flower, and sad with rain and clouds, against a purple background.

Send a smile with ‘From me to you’

In this Scratch project, creators make a digital card that they can share using a web address. You could suggest they make a thank-you card for someone who has helped them, a cheerful message for a friend, or a welcome card for a new club member. Encourage them to choose who to create their card for and to make the design their own.

Try ‘From me to you’

Stay connected with ‘Friend frame’

For experienced creators ready for a more advanced physical computing challenge, ‘Friend frame’ involves building a photo frame that shows a colour when a notification arrives from a friend. It is a creative starting point for thinking about how technology can help people feel connected.

Try ‘Friend frame’

Cartoonish illustration of a smiling child with curly hair pointing at a notification bell, surrounded by chat bubbles containing an envelope, smiling emojis, and a phone icon.

Make kindness part of every session

As well as making projects, there are lots of other ways for creators to make someone smile. Leave a little time at the end of your sessions for creators to thank someone, share something they admire about a project, or recognise a helpful moment.

A group of four schoolchildren gathered around a laptop, focused on the screen. They are wearing school uniforms, with some in green shirts and others in white. The classroom has a bright atmosphere with educational materials in the background.

Whether it’s a new friendship, a thoughtful creation, or the confidence to share an idea, there is plenty to celebrate at your Code Club

How does your club make everyone feel welcome? We would love to hear about the friendships and small acts of kindness that make your club sessions special. Tag us in your social posts this World Kindness Day!

Why Bebras could belong in your Code Club

Some creators love a puzzle, so sometimes, a timed computational thinking challenge like Bebras can be just right for a Code Club.

One Code Club mentor from Cranmere Primary School, Surrey, UK wondered how the UK Bebras Challenge would fit into his fun and informal club. After giving it a try, the club discovered how much their creators loved tackling the puzzles — and how naturally Bebras fitted into the Code Club experience.

Richard shares why Bebras worked well in his club.

A cartoon beaver sitting at a desk with a laptop and a coffee mug, promoting the UK Bebras Challenge 2026 scheduled from November 9 to 20.

“They loved Bebras”

“My club is always quite chaotic. Although it takes place in a school, it doesn’t feel like a class or a formal lesson.

“That’s why I wasn’t sure if it would be a good place to run the Bebras Challenge, even though I’d tried some of the puzzles myself and really enjoyed them. It sounded a bit too formal for my Code Club.”

Richard decided to test the idea by launching a separate Bebras Puzzle Club with the school’s computing lead. Some Code Club regulars joined, alongside plenty of new faces.

During the first few sessions, the young people explored practice puzzles from previous challenges. They could try them freely or tackle them as timed activities.

“Timed test? That definitely sounds like school rather than a fun club, I thought. That’s not what the youngsters thought. They loved Bebras.”

“Many were going home and blasting through the other practice questions with such gusto that we worried we wouldn’t have enough left for them to do in the club. Even during the week of the Bebras challenge, their enthusiasm was undiminished, and there were groans of disappointment when we said that was the end of the club.”

Fortunately, the Raspberry Pi Foundation also offers a free follow-on Raspberry Pi Foundation Coding Challenge for groups who completed the UK Bebras Challenge, so Richard’s club members were not disappointed for long. 

“The biggest sign of the group’s enthusiasm came on the day of the Raspberry Pi Foundation Coding Challenge. The Year 6 participants had spent the day on a school trip to London. Their train home was delayed, and they then had to walk back to school through a hailstorm.

When they arrived, they were weary and bedraggled. I told them there wasn’t enough time to take the challenge, so they could quietly work with Scratch instead. They were crestfallen.

“With some quick help from the office, we arranged for them to stay later. They all happily sat down, logged on, and got stuck in.”

Richard found that Bebras introduced more young people to Code Club. When the spring term began, several members of the Puzzle Club signed up to continue exploring coding and technology at Code Club. 

Give Bebras a go in your Code Club

The free UK Bebras Challenge runs from 9–20 November and introduces young people aged 6–19 to computational thinking through fun, interactive puzzles. They don’t need any coding experience to take part, and the online tasks take just 45 minutes to complete. Every participant also receives a certificate.

Your Code Club can use the archive of previous challenges to try a few puzzles with your club first. They make brilliant warm-up activities and give creators a chance to practise problem-solving, logical thinking, and perseverance together.

A colorful map illustrating various locations connected by paths, with each location represented by iconic buildings or structures and star ratings indicating their popularity.

As Richard reflected: “I wasn’t sure Bebras would suit a group that wasn’t particularly studious or competitive, but I was surprised by how popular it was. I’m definitely going to take part in the 2026 challenge.”

Bebras takes place around the world. Find your local challenge and contact the organiser to see how your Code Club can take part.

The 2026 UK Bebras Challenge runs from 9–20 November. Register your Code Club for free and invite your creators to discover what they can achieve.

Translation supports Turkish creators to tell their own stories

Habitat Association, a global Code Club partner, is an organisation dedicated to empowering communities across Türkiye through digital literacy, coding, technology-driven innovation, and entrepreneurship. They believe everyone, especially youth and underserved groups, should have equal access to future-ready skills, technology, and economic opportunities.

Ruhee Shah, Global Partnerships Coordinator at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, spoke to Abide Tuncer, Code Club Coordinator at Habitat Association, about how translation is helping thousands of young Turkish coders build with confidence in their own language.

A conference setting with an audience attending a talk on volunteering, featuring a speaker at the front and a large screen displaying 'habitat' and 'Gönüllü Buluşması'.

Tell your story through code

Habitat Association currently runs 10 Code Clubs across 8 cities, alongside sessions held in public schools, regional STEM centres, and container classrooms in disaster-affected areas. Every session welcomes creators aged 7 to 14, working alongside volunteer mentors, local educators, and university students on coding challenges, game design, and digital literacy activities.

Rather than treating coding as a technical subject meant for a handful of people, Habitat Association’s mentors present it as a creative outlet — an activity that can be shaped around a learner’s own interests and questions. Mistakes are treated as part of the process, and young coders are encouraged to build their own projects rather than follow a fixed script. It’s an approach designed to help young people who might not see themselves as “coders” discover that they already are one.

‘’In our clubs, we don’t just explain how technology works; we give children a universal voice to tell their own stories, solve real problems, and shape the world they want to see.’’
Ezgi, Mentor

A classroom of children focused on computers displaying colorful underwater scenes with animated fish and coral.

The power of translation

Earlier this year, Habitat Association’s team started working with the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s translation network to translate Code Club projects into Turkish. Ten projects have been completed so far, with plans to add 5 to 10 more by the end of 2026, and a longer-term goal of translating around 20 projects a year, building what Habitat Association calls “a living library” that grows alongside the needs of Turkish-speaking children.

“Language is often the first barrier for young learners, and having materials in Turkish lets students focus on understanding coding logic. Instead of struggling with unfamiliar English instructions, children can now dive straight into problem-solving, game design, and digital storytelling with genuine confidence in their native tongue.”

– Abide Tuncer, Code Club Coordinator, Habitat Association

The project has gone beyond simply swapping out English words for Turkish ones. Habitat Association’s team has also adapted project narratives, character sprites, and everyday examples so that they reflect local culture, humour, and storytelling traditions that children across Türkiye grow up with. They’ve also helped us to align activities with Turkish school routines, national holidays, and community life. The result is that coding no longer feels unfamiliar, but something young learners can engage in easily.

The change is visible in the clubs themselves. Children who once needed extra help just to get started are now moving straight into building, and mentors are seeing greater enthusiasm and engagement across every session. Translated projects have also given Habitat Association’s volunteer mentors clearer, more practical teaching resources, helping them run sessions with more confidence and consistency — whether a club meets in a city centre, a rural youth hub, a container classroom, or the Mobile Training Vehicle.

“Seeing students light up as they discover new, fun ways to learn coding has been the most rewarding part of being on the translation team. What used to feel like a subject only for ‘techy’ kids now feels open to everyone, because they can finally focus on creating instead of translating. I’m so proud watching them go from hesitant beginners to confidently calling themselves coders.”

– Tuğba, Translator for the Code Club Projects

That confidence has already translated into real creations. Since the first localised projects launched, students have been building and sharing their own interactive games and animations entirely in Turkish, something that would not have been possible before.

A teacher demonstrating virtual reality equipment to students in a classroom with a banner that reads 'Yapay Zekâ Yıldızları'.

Looking ahead

For the rest of the year, Habitat Association plans to expand its library of translated projects, grow its volunteer network, and connect Code Club participants with wider opportunities to turn their ideas into real projects and competition entries. The goal is to move clubs beyond one-way learning spaces, into places where children experiment, build, and share with confidence.

“We want them to leave with the feeling that they are not simply coding for the future, they are coding the present… the choices, ideas and creations they make today can become part of the legacy they leave for tomorrow.”

– Abide Tuncer, Code Club Coordinator, Habitat Association

By meeting children in their own language and their own communities, Habitat Association is proving that removing a single barrier can open the door for thousands of creators.

Want to start creating? Explore our coding projects that are available over 25 languages.