BBC micro:bit

Get ready to code: This is our Code Club!

We’re kicking off a new season of coding fun with three new ‘This is our Code Club’ projects for registered Code Clubs that are all about creativity and storytelling. Get ready to bring your club’s story to life through code!

Two young girls engaged in a coding activity, smiling and collaborating while working on laptops, with a colorful 'This is our Code Club' graphic in the background.

These three new exclusive projects are designed to help creators bring their Code Club’s story to life. The best part? When you share your finished projects with us, you’ll get a special sticker pack, including brand new glitter stickers! You have until Friday, 24 October to share your projects with us.

For registered Code Clubs, full details can be found in your inbox. Search for “This is our Code Club”. Not a Code Club? Register today to unlock access to these exclusive projects!

Let’s explore the projects and how you can use them in your Code Club.

Our flatgame | Scratch

Our flatgame is a one-of-a-kind project that mixes video games with poetry! These games are simple — creators can quickly make a full game and focus on their ideas instead of complicated game mechanics.

Young people start by creating their own physical assets — sketches, drawings, or even cut-outs of things they love about their Code Club. Next, they’ll use Scratch to build a simple scrolling game where a player moves around their amazing creations. It’s a fantastic way to turn your ideas and artwork into a playable game.

An illustration showing hands pointing at a digital tablet displaying a green circular shape, surrounded by colorful craft materials and the text 'This is our Code Club — Our flatgame'.

Tips to get started 

  • Creators can work together and share photos. One person could focus on the text and storytelling while another handles the visuals.
  • Break the project into multiple sessions. The first session could be all about discovery and idea generation, including writing stories, drawing, and taking photos. The second session would then be for building the game in Scratch.
  • You could take the photos and upload them as new sprites in a starter project for each group. Creators can then remix the project, duplicate the sprite with all the pictures, and choose the ones they want to use.

What creators will learn

This project is about creativity and self-expression. Creators will learn the workflow of video game design and asset creation, and get to use Scratch to add movement, text, and sound effects.

Our beat | micro:bit

Ready to get musical? Our beat is a hands-on digital music project where you’ll build and code your very own Code Club theme tune! Using the BBC micro:bit and the MakeCode editor, you’ll create melodies, bass lines, and drum loops.

You can start with our unplugged warm-up activity to explore rhythms and sequences without a screen, then use the MakeCode simulator to test out your tunes before bringing them to life on a real micro:bit.

Illustration promoting the 'This is our Code Club - Our podcast' project, featuring a character playing drums, with musical notes and a BBC micro:bit in the background.

Tips to get started

  • Use the MakeCode simulator first to get creators to test and refine their tunes. This is especially helpful if you don’t have enough micro:bits for everyone.
  • Encourage pair programming: one person can write the code while the other suggests melodies or tests the playback. Make sure they swap roles so everyone gets a chance to try both coding and creating music.
  • Begin with a simple melody on one micro:bit, then add more features like play and pause buttons. This progression is built into the project, but managing creators’ expectations will help them see their music evolve instead of trying to do everything at once.

What creators will learn

This project is a great introduction to programming concepts like sequences, loops, variables, and conditional statements. Creators will also explore how radio communication works between devices and learn real-world debugging and problem-solving skills.

Our podcast | AI

Let’s make your club podcast stars! Turn your unique stories into a show that celebrates everything that makes your Code Club special. Play the Scriptville example podcast to get everyone excited and to give them a feel for what they’ll be creating.

Illustration of two children recording a podcast in a colorful setting. One child wears headphones and sits at a computer, while the other raises a hand in excitement. A microphone and sound wave graphics complement the scene.

Tips to get started

  • Start by introducing the concept of podcasts and asking creators what they listen to or if they’ve ever made one.
  • This is a collaborative project. Everyone’s voice will contribute to the final podcast, so there’s no pressure on one person.
  • Encourage them to write about their experiences. Stories about things that have happened in the club make for great listening! They can use the writing prompts to help, and remind them to use only first names in the podcast.

What creators will learn

Creators will learn to work with artificial intelligence (AI) tools and see their potential in new and different ways. By creating and sharing their own podcast, they’ll bring their stories to life and experience the process of collaborative creation, where their individual contributions come together to form a shared outcome. They will work with plain text files, workflows, and organising files, and have experience with digital publishing.

For registered Code Clubs, full details can be found in your inbox. Search for “This is our Code Club”. Not a Code Club? Register today to unlock access to these exclusive projects!

Ready to start creating? Explore the ‘This is our Code Club’ projects and showcase your Code Club story for the rest of the world! We can’t wait to see your projects.

From coding to caring: Exploring well-being through micro:bits

Children’s Mental Health Week (5 to 11 February) is a crucial reminder of the importance of looking after the well-being of the young learners who come to Code Club.

A hand holding a micro:bit over a laptop keyboard.
Photo credit: David Bird

There are many ways that we can support mental health and well-being through technology. Our ‘Introduction to micro:bit’ projects are centred around well-being, and use various applications of technology to cover topics such as mental health, relaxation, and exercise.

Pete Bell, Learning Manager at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, tells us more about the projects in the path:

“This new path allows young people to connect with the world around them by making use of lights, sound, buttons, and sensors. By using these inputs and outputs, combined with block-based programming, young people can develop engaging digital tools that help them be considerate about their own well-being and that of others.”

As young people move through the path, they not only develop new skills, but also learn how to make their own tech tools that they can use to take care of themselves and their friends.

Tracking sleep to promote well-being

A great example is sleep! We all know that a good night’s sleep helps our brains to work better, helps us feel happier, and keeps our bodies healthier. We’ve created a ‘Sleep tracker’ project where young people build a tracker to record the amount of sleep they get with a micro:bit.

Promoting empathy and collaboration

The projects in our micro:bit pathway shows how technology can be used to improve lives. The collaborative nature of Code Club allows learners to engage in discussions, share perspectives, and develop an understanding of one another’s challenges and triumphs. Doing this together makes them understand and care about each other’s feelings, not just in the digital world but in real life too.

Our design project ‘How’s your day?’ is a great example of how young people can use their micro:bit to build a program that checks what kind of day you or your friends are having.

Growing coders’ sense of purpose and agency

Our micro:bit pathway also encourages club members to engage in computing projects that address real-world problems affecting their lives and communities. By empowering them to tackle issues that matter to them, we’re instilling a sense of purpose and agency. This doesn’t just make them more confident at coding but also helps them see the connection between technology and positive social impact.

Young Code Club project tester, James, shares more about our ‘Music Player‘ project and how it has made music that brings him happiness!

Encouraging discussions

Finally, it’s important to provide a safe space for young people to discuss how they deal with things both at home and at school. Coding activities like these projects give you a natural opportunity to start discussions on well-being, where learners can share their strategies for dealing with things and learn how their peers deal with things too. This open dialogue will help them understand that it is OK to react differently to different situations and also give them the tools they need to manage their well-being. 

Support and resources available

If you’re looking to get started with our micro:bit path there is lots of support available to you:

  • Explore the Introduction to micro:bit path.
  • Need help? Our Getting started with micro:bit guide has information and tips to help you use the micro:bit projects in your club.
  • Look out for our micro:bit workshops on the Code Club events page
  • Acknowledge coding wins with our bespoke progress chart
  • Celebrate learners’ success with our micro:bit path certificate
Download our micro:bit progress chart

The progress chart and certificate are available from our resource page under ‘Progress charts’ and ‘Core Code Club certificates’. Login and download!

So why not explore the micro:bit path, encourage conversation around well-being in your Code Club, and learn together this Children’s Mental Week and beyond.

Impala Bridge: How Code Club is helping to bring digital making to Benin

Code Club started in 2012 in the U.K., with the aim to give local children a chance to learn to code. Fast forward ten years and there are Code Clubs in over 160 countries around the world, with partner organisations* working in many regions.

In Benin, Impala Bridge is a partner organisation using Code Club and CoderDojo programmes to give young learners (and educators) access to digital making. Izzy, Global Community Coordinator, caught up with Martin Mbaga, one of the co-founders of Impala Bridge, to find out more.

Local Benin educators

The inspiration

Martin and the other co-founders were inspired by their own experiences; many of the volunteers are former refugees. While living in refugee camps in Belgium, they had the opportunity to learn coding and other digital skills. For Martin, this helped inspire his passion for technology and community outreach: “Belgium has given me something, now I have to give it back.”

How does it work?

Impala Bridge operates in Belgium and Benin. In Belgium, the focus is on refugee camps, teaching coding and robotics. In Benin, they work with other organisations to support Guerra Digital Innovation Hub. Operating in Parakou, North Benin, Guerra helps the community improve their digital literacy in several ways. Educators and volunteers are given training to improve their own digital skills and prepare them to run clubs. In turn, these teachers and volunteers go on to set up Code Clubs in local secondary schools.

Code Club leaders gather together from across Benin

Powered by people

During our conversation, one thing comes up again and again: people. “For me it’s all about people,” Martin says. “School teachers and directors of the schools (particularly our early adopters from Albarika College), IT leaders and ministry workers, the Director of UNFPA (United Nations Fund for Populations) and UN agency innovation teams, without them this wouldn’t work. Giving those people recognition is important.” He also highlights the volunteers, from the edu-lab.be teachers in Belgium connecting with teachers in Benin, to the local university students running clubs, to the schools themselves: “If you don’t have people, you can’t do anything.”

Hopes for 2023 and beyond

Based on the success of the current model, the team at Impala Bridge hopes to expand the area they operate in and increase the number of clubs. They also have plans to create a regular cohort of learners using Micro:bit computers. They have already run several events of this type, and they hope for the learners — mostly girls from the local community — to take part in the annual Micro:bit challenge.

Code Club members

More broadly, Impala Bridge hopes to continue to help the community as a whole. Martin explains that EdTech entrepreneurs who volunteer at Code Clubs have gone on to use their learnings to help create virtual solutions and make jobs. And for the learners themselves, Code Club is opening up new possibilities for their lives: “With IT and globalisation, you can make your future better.”

Find out more about becoming a Code Club partner organisation

*The Raspberry Pi Foundation partners with organisations around the world to help support local Code Club and CoderDojo communities. Growth partners start and support a collection of clubs in their own network, while national partners take on the responsibility of supporting all clubs in their country, building a nationwide CoderDojo or Code Club community.