Volunteers

Volunteers stories: Polly from Auto Trader (Part 3)

Over the last few weeks we’ve been posting a blog series from Polly, a Code Club volunteer from Auto Trader in Manchester who started her first club six months ago.

She’s been sharing her experience of running a Code Club with us, chronicling her journey from “ a nervous wreck to a (more or less) confident Code Club leader”.

Polly hopes sharing her story may encourage more people to have a go starting a Club. In this final blog, she reflects on coming to the end of her Code Club, introducing the class to Python, HTML/CSS, and the rewards she gained from volunteering…

Now we come to the final countdown of Code Club. You’ve been doing it for weeks, you’re competent, you’ve built a rapport with the kids and now it’s ending! Just as it was getting good!

ComputerIn the final weeks I felt I really got into my stride and developed a good understanding of how to handle the kids, and more importantly, how to motivate them. A fair few of the kids had or were close to, completing all of the scratch projects, so it seemed the right time to introduce them to some other programming languages.

On the Code Club website there are  HTML and CSS as well as python projects. Unfortunately, the school’s network would not allow Python to be installed on the machines; online Python editors are available but as the instructions on the projects were specific to the editor that comes with the Python installation, it was a bit confusing for the kids. The actual Python projects weren’t as appealing either; the first one was ascii art. After Scratch, where the kids could animate objects, have sound and whatever colours they wanted, ascii art really didn’t inspire them.   

Code 004The HTML and CSS projects went down much better though. The first project was creating a birthday card and the kids really enjoyed personalising them. I introduced them to the colour picker on w3schools, which they thought was great, and after talking them through other functions the w3schools website has on offer, I’m confident that at least a few of them will be learning more through the site. I also told the kids about Code Academy and began going through one of the tutorials so they could see what it looks like. A few of the children in particular really blew me away with their enthusiasm within Code Club, so I have absolutely no doubt they continued using Code Academy over the summer. Towards the end, some of the kids were even showing me games they had programmed in their spare time.

I think it is fair to say that I wasn’t sure how to relate to kids before running this Code Club. In fairness, on a normal day-to-day basis, the only interactions I had really had with them were on modes of transport, when you only really notice them because of the noise! But getting to work with kids on something they were so excited and passionate about has really changed my perspective. You might wonder why I volunteered to run a Code Club in the first place! I saw it as a great opportunity in the early stages of my career to get some coaching skills…and also hopefully learn to relate to children better!

Robot - 003I feel I got a lot more than just coaching skills out of the experience though. There was a fair amount of organisation involved; organising transport there every week, making sure I had the correct resources printed off for the kids, and towards the end, making sure I had enough variation of activities to keep all the kids engaged. I think it is fair to say there was an element of managing involved too. Leaving work at 2.45pm every Friday might sound like a dream but at times it actually became quite stressful. I had to learn to manage my time effectively throughout the week and ensure I didn’t end up in a bottle neck situation on the Friday with several little tasks needing to be finished off before the end of the week. To a certain degree, the kids needed managing too; trying to keep them entertained and interested on the Code Club projects wasn’t always easy, and was something that took me a while to get the hang of.

Overall, running a Code Club was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone. You get to positively impact a group of kids lives as well as the general community. Plus, you learn new skills and have great new experiences! It was exhausting at times, but it was always a lot of fun and I hope that maybe some of them have even been inspired enough to carry on coding.

Top tip! Did you know we have new HTML projects? Take a look here https://www.codeclubprojects.org/en-GB/webdev/

Volunteers stories: Polly from Auto Trader (Part 2)

Last week we heard from Polly, a Code Club volunteer from Auto Trader who started her first Code Club six months ago.

She has written in depth about her experiences running a Code Club in Manchester, chronicling her journey from (in Polly’s words) “ a nervous wreck to a (more or less) confident Code Club leader”.

Previously we heard about the preparations Polly took before getting her club started – including securing a DBS check via STEMNET and visiting the school at which her club is hosted.

This week, Polly shares her thoughts from her first club session, reflecting on how the children progressed over the weeks, and how she dealt with challenges and overcame them by using different techniques to keep the children engaged and excited…

Before the start of my first Code Club session I needed to make a few preparations.  I printed out copies of the first three projects. From the school I had learned that some of the kids had already done the first project a few months before so I wanted to make sure I had something for them. A note on the printing: color is essential! Also the kids really didn’t like it when I printed the instructions horizontally with two sheets on each side…it may just have been their personal preference but they really did seem to prefer double sided vertical A4 stapled top left corner.

These things seem quite basic and maybe even obvious; but a few times I hadn’t gotten around to stapling the instructions before hand and it resulted in a fair bit of confusion as the kids got their sheets all mixed up. They generally don’t need much excuse to get distracted, so little things like this helped keep them on the right track.

The big day finaTeacher Robot 001lly came; the first day of Code Club. I made sure I got there ridiculously early, but there was good need. First off, I had my DBS certificate photocopied so that the school office could keep a copy. Then there was logging in as a teacher on to one of the computers and figuring out how to use the smart whiteboard. I brought up one of the projects I had been working through on the projector so that everyone could see what they were working towards.

The first session really was a blur, once they arrived it seemed like minutes until they were leaving again. I tried quite hard to learn all of their names, there were only ten of them but I still failed miserably.

One of my main observations of that day was their determination to follow the instructions exactly, or not at all. This left me either trying to encourage them to think outside of the box, by choosing different sprites or to color them different colors, or futilely trying to get them to stay on track. Neither yielded positive results!

However, I did eventually find that the kids responded really well to me showing them my versions of the projects they were doing. The little changes I had made to them, things as simple as color changes, really helped them to move away from just following the instructions line for line, even if they did then just try to recreate what I had done.

After the first couple of clubs, I think the novelty of me as a new volunteer had worn off. The kids began being unruly, spent more time drawing sprites than programming them and would at times be on YouTube within seconds of your back being turned. This was when the promise of a certificate came in useful.

I think it was around the fourth or fifth club that I welcomed them into the room with the certificate up on the screen. They were all asking how they could get one and became competitive with one another over who would get theirs first. When it came to handing these out I made sure I laminated them first so that they looked the part and the teacher took them to be presented in assembly. You could tell that this meant a lot to the kids and they were really proud of their achievement. This really helped to positively reinforce the message I was trying to get across about the need to complete projects and push the boundaries of creativity.

Top Tip! Why not team up with a colleague to run your club so you can share the responsibility of running your Code Club?

Volunteer Stories: Polly from Auto Trader (Part 1)

At this time of year we have lots of new Code Clubs starting, so when Polly Caldwell from Auto Trader got in touch to say that she wanted to share her volunteering story with us, we jumped at the opportunity.

Polly has now been running a Code Club for six months, and is keen to share her advice and experience in the hope that it may help encourage other would-be volunteers to take the plunge and start their own clubs.

We’ll be posting three blogs which chronicle Polly’s journey from (in her words) “ a nervous wreck to a (more or less) confident Code Club leader”, so let’s kick things off…

So you’ve decided to run a Code Club…

Hipster Robot 002As a professional developer working at Auto Trader, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to run a Code Club at a primary school. I learnt some extremely valuable things working with children, from who to go to for help, to figuring out the best way to motivate kids and getting them excited about code!

So if you’ve decided to run a Code Club for kids, read on. I hope you’ll be able to find some useful tips and take something you can apply to your own code clubbing experience.

Before you get ahead of yourself, there are a lot of things to cross off before you can start such a mammoth project! Firstly, anyone wanting to work with children under the age of 18 is required to have an Enhanced DBS check completed. Secondly, it’s recommended that you complete Code Club’s specific training. So I definitely had a lot on my plate.

One of the best ways to get the required checks and training done is to become a STEM ambassador. You start by registering online from the STEMNET website. Once this is complete you will be invited to attend one of the two-hour introductory training sessions. This was really useful as it covered all of the basics, as well as telling you a bit about the great organization that is STEMNET and all of the great opportunities that are available to you when you become a STEM ambassador.

To this training session you also take along the paperwork required to apply for your DBS check, this will get photocopied during the session and your application will be completed on your behalf.

As well as STEMNET training there is also some Code Club specific training that needs to be completed before you can register your Code Club. This training can be completed directly from the Code Club website.  If you are volunteering independently and need to find a school to run a Code Club at, the Code Club website can be used for this too. You can search for a venue within a given radius and contact your preferred school directly from the site. As I was volunteering through my work, they handled finding the school, but I still needed to register the Code Club on the Code Club website.

Preparation is key to feeling confident going into your first Code Club. Once I had my DBS certificate back I contacted the school that I had been paired with. After exchanging a few introductory emails I arranged a visit to the school. This was really valuable as not only was I able to meet the teacher who would be present at the Code Clubs, but I was also able to have a look at the equipment available.

I would recommend using a visit like this to check the websites you are going to use. Schools can have quite strict web access rules so it’s definitely worthwhile making sure you can reach all the sites you may take for granted; for instance, stack overflow was not available from the school’s network!

Halo 001It is also useful to gauge where the students are knowledge wise. The Code Club I ran was during summer term so the kids had already used Scratch and were fairly competent at the basics. I on the other hand had never used Scratch before and my knowledge consisted of what I had seen on the Barclays advert- perhaps not the best start!

So before the first session I worked my way through a few of the Scratch projects. The instructions that come with each of the projects are really comprehensive and easy to understand, although this does stand to reason as they’re for 9 to 11 year olds! There are “challenges” within the instructions where you are tasked with adding in additional sprites, functionality or enhancing what you have already done. I used these as an opportunity to personalize the project and make it my own, something that really appealed to the kids.

Something to note, if you don’t have time to do all the projects from the start…then you can cheat! This is quite easy – all you have to do is click on a project’s volunteer notes, where you will find a link to the completed project (you can see the rock band volunteer notes here).

Top Tip! You can use this Code Club checklist to help you plan the meeting with your club host: https://training.codeclub.org.uk/downloads/Checklist.pdf