Code Club team

Code Club is 10 years old!

 2022 marks ten years of Code Club, a HUGE community achievement.

To mark this amazing milestone, we’re bringing the community together for a two-week coding extravaganza! Put 16 to 27 May in your calendars, and help us celebrate. 

Looking back

Back in April 2012, Code Club co-founders, Clare Sutcliffe and Linda Sandvik published our very first blog announcing the launch of Code Club. Three hundred sixty-five blogs later, we’re celebrating our 10th birthday! 

Tamasin Greenough Graham, Head of Code Club, reflects on where we’ve come: 

“Code Club was really inspired by the idea that kids coding after school as a hobby could be just as normal as going to a sports club. I’m so proud that we have achieved that. 

Code Clubs are now in schools across the world and each week that number continues to grow. Schools now see having a Code Club is just as important an offer to young people as having a sports club. That is something that the team and I are incredibly proud of.”

Code Clubs from across the world

From its inception, Code Club has always provided a fun and supportive space for children to learn and get creative with code. 

Each week, across the globe, we see that lightbulb moment when learners make their first blocks of Scratch code come to life and realise that they have the power to create their own stories, games, animations, and more.

A NEW birthday Scratch project

To help us celebrate, our amazing content team have designed a new birthday Scratch project for your Code Club to have fun with. In this game, your coders will create a simple game where you hit a piñata to release tasty birthday treats and reveal a Code Club celebration message. 

Read on, and see how your club can work on this project at our global codealong party!

You’re invited to our codealong party

The highlight of our birthday will be an online global codealong party on Thursday 26 May. We’re inviting your club to join the Code Club team live from across the world to code our fun birthday project in Scratch

There will be several one-hour codealong sessions running throughout the day, and the event will be open to all schools, community groups, and children, regardless of whether they usually attend Code Club. 

Take a look at our registration form, see which codealong session time suits your club the best, and sign up!

Get Code Club party ready! 

Every birthday requires a party! We’ve created a downloadable party pack containing everything your club needs to host their own party, which includes printable stickers, a coding crossword, and party hats! All you need to do is invite your coders. 

Get ready to put your party hats on and help us mark a decade of coding fun!

To mark this achievement, we want to hear your memories. However big or small, share them with the Code Club community on social media using the hashtag #CodeClubIs10.

New year, new resources! Welcoming well-being in 2022

Here at Code Club, we’ve been talking about our New Year’s resolutions. Like many people around the world, our focus this year will be on our health and well-being.

In this blog post, we’ll be sharing how we plan to look after ourselves, each other, and you — our amazing Code Club community! Spoiler alert: It involves three new resources for you.

As we welcome 2022, we want to talk about what we can do to look after our mental health this year. Focusing on good mental health is an excellent New Year’s resolution and it ties in brilliantly with Children’s Mental Health Week, which takes place next month (7–13 February). 

Last year, the team got active to help our physical and mental well-being. We put on our walking shoes to take part in a virtual walk from London to Delhi that took 12 months and 14,251,903 steps! We also had a go at yoga and practised mindfulness to help us stay healthy.

To help us continue with our well-being mindset, we’ve been thinking hard about how we can support the health and well-being of our clubs in the coming months.

NEW well-being project collection

Following the success of our project collections in 2021, we are excited to launch a new project collection all about health and well-being. Each project has step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow to help young coders and educators to learn together and develop their coding skills! 

The Relax and stretch project is an ideal beginner Scratch project. Your coders will motivate people to stretch and exercise regularly throughout the day. 

Your confident coders can work on our Mandala project to create beautiful images by repeating geometric symbols. This is known to be a relaxing and mindful activity, and your young people can make their own mandalas in Scratch with this project.

Mandala Scratch project

And there’s more!

Our NEW Scratch and Python word searches are now live. We hope that your young coders enjoy them as much as our team did! These resources are not only great offline activities, but also encourage mindfulness and a moment of calm for coders in the classroom. 

So whether you are coming back to Code Club after a break or simply want to focus on well-being in your club this term, check out these new resources.

If you’re based in the UK, the USA, India, or Ireland, head to your dashboard to download these three new resources. If you’re based outside of these countries, head to our Code Club International website and find the collection and word searches inside your Club Organiser Pack.

Our Code Club global tour — find out what we learned!

Over the last year, our global Code Club team has missed being able to make in-person club visits. Seeing our clubs’ creativity, enthusiasm, and love of coding first-hand is a massive inspiration to us.

This year, the team decided to take a tour of the world to visit clubs online, and in some countries in person, to see how everyone is getting on. Here are a few highlights!

First stop…the USA!

Kevin, our Club Program Coordinator for North America, joined educator David Slavin at his online club session at Pajaro Valley Virtual Academy, in California.  

The club members he met were enthusiastic, polite, and keen to share their ideas. They were also excited to learn more about how they could share their coding creations as part of Coolest Projects.

Kevin reflected on his visit:  

“I can’t imagine how difficult it has been for educators and learners to have had to transition to online learning so abruptly, but to see these students bursting with curiosity was inspiring!” 

Let’s head Down Under!

Nicola Curnow, Program Manager for Code Club Australia, has been able to resume in-person club visits and joined Ferntree Gully Club in Melbourne. This club thought about what they have learnt at Code Club and decided to build a school newsletter using their HTML knowledge! 

“When I visited they were working on formatting and editing the newsletter. The teachers and volunteers did an amazing job working together to build the newsletter for their community.”

Approximately 4800 miles away in India…

Vasu, our Club Programme Coordinator in India, had the exciting opportunity to go online to see a hybrid club at Core Programmers Academy in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. In the session, some children took part in the classroom, while others joined online from their homes.

Vasu enjoyed seeing the club in action and the leader had planned the session perfectly to help the young coders interact and learn alongside each other.

Vasu said:  

 “It’s great to see that the Code Club India community is working so hard to continuously stay updated with different models of learning in this ever-changing new world!” 

Vasu joining the Core Programmers Academy from her home

Meanwhile, in the UK

Zoe, Programme Coordinator for Code Club UK & Ireland, popped online to visit Rugby Library in Warwickshire, where their creative coders were enjoying launching into space with Astro Pi Mission Zero and racing to the finish line of Scratch module one with Boat race!

“It was wonderful to see the kids working independently through the projects and feeling confident to ask for help. I had so much fun and loved when Hazq showed me his super cool Boat race project!”  

The Scratch game Boat race

What we learned 

What shone brightly throughout these visits, is how well everyone has adapted during these challenging times. The resilience of the Code Club community has been nothing short of inspirational.

There may be less noise in an online session, but the fun learning environment where coders can continue to explore and be creative, is still very much alive! 

Visit my club

You can get in touch to invite us to visit your online club. We would love to see and celebrate your amazing achievements, so please share them with us on Twitter at Code Club UK or Code Club World using the hashtag #MyCodeClub!