Education

People gathered in a group holding Code Club signs.

Fundació Bofill: Creating inclusive Code Clubs across Catalonia

Fundació Bofill is a non-profit organisation dedicated to fostering equity through education. They partner with Code Club to promote digital skills to young learners across Catalonia (an autonomous community in Spain) who might otherwise miss out.

Ellie Proffitt, Global Partnerships Manager at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, recently chatted to Ana Holschuh Heras, Code Club Community & Research Coordinator at Fundació Bofill, to learn more about how Fundació Bofill’s Code Club network in Catalonia has grown. Read on to learn what Ellie discovered.

People gathered in a group holding Code Club signs.
The team at Fundació Bofill

Why Code Club matters

In Catalonia, only 5% of the extracurricular activities that children participate in are technology-related. What’s more, due to financial barriers, 34% of children from low-income families do not participate in any extracurricular activities, which sharply limits their access to learning opportunities.

Fundació Bofill is determined to change this. Code Club stood out to them as a brilliant way to drive such change with its free, accessible projects in a format that would suit young learners. It seemed the perfect fit — not only to bridge the digital skills gap, but also to build a community in which young people would feel empowered to shift from passive consumers of technology to active creators.

“We believe every child has the right to learn programming creatively, giving shape to their imagination.” — Claudia Iannicelli, Code Club Regional Coordinator

A glimpse into Catalonian Code Clubs

Ana and her team chose to set up their clubs in schools and communities in under-resourced neighbourhoods where access to afterschool clubs is often limited.

Fundacio Bofill now supports an incredible 110 Code Clubs across 21 municipalities. That’s over 1,518 children who are benefiting from the opportunity to learn to code, who may otherwise have been excluded. 

Three young people sat in a row looking at laptops.
Creators attending a Code Club led by Fundació Bofill

A typical club session begins with a warm welcome and a recap of the day, followed by unplugged activities that spark critical discussions on technology and its many uses. Learners then dive into programming challenges, often working in pairs, to develop their problem-solving and coding skills. Reflections and previews of upcoming activities close the session.

“We help each other and learn as a team because I think without teamwork, you can’t work well.” — Code Club participant

Fundació Bofill’s clubs run in 16-week blocks, with four distinct phases: 

  • Building a Code Club community
  • Exploring programming concepts
  • Engaging in collaborative projects
  • Having a community showcase finale

The community showcase finale is an exciting highlight for everyone. Club members show their coding projects to their families and their wider school community, with attendees also getting to learn about Scratch and programming — often for the first time. It’s a wonderful example of how Code Clubs bring people together, and can inspire everyone to engage with technology in some way.

Representation for the next generation 

At the heart of Fundació Bofill’s Code Clubs is a dedicated team of 21 club mentors, who the organisation calls ‘dinamitzadores’. Leaders like these play a pivotal role in creating safe, engaging, and inclusive learning environments where all children feel empowered to explore and innovate. 

A group of people sat and standing holding Code Club branded cushions and signs.
Code Club leaders at a training event in Catalonia 

Nearly 90% of the dinamitzadores are young women aged 20 to 30. Representation matters — 47.5% of club attendees are girls — and having female leaders in technology is a powerful way to inspire girls to see themselves in tech roles. 

“The key role of a leader is to guide rather than teach, allowing children the freedom to develop their own projects and learn from the process and mistakes.” — Marta Salvador, Code Club leader

“When you make a mistake, it’s not a failure — it’s an opportunity to improve.” — Claudia Iannicelli, Code Club Regional Coordinator 

What’s next?

Fundació Bofill achieved so much in 2024. What’s in store for 2025? 

They have three clear aims: 

  • Increase the number of active clubs and participants
  • Ensure long-term sustainability by embedding Code Club into local educational policies
  • Continue to empower children, especially girls, to see themselves as future leaders in technology

A big congratulations to Ana and all those at Fundació Bofill for their work so far. We can’t wait to see Code Club grow even further across Catalonia!

Find out more about our Global Clubs Partnership network and how you can get involved.

Three benefits of attending the computing education seminars! 

2023 is shaping up to be a year full of personal development and learning opportunities at Code Club: in March we’re hosting the Clubs Conference for you; throughout the year you can join our brilliant new Code Club online event programme; and now we have a primary computing education seminar series, delivered by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Learning at Code Club

While you are busy running Code Clubs, researchers across the globe are committing their time to exploring how education works and how we can ensure that our practice continues to benefit young people’s learning.

The researchers at the Raspberry Pi Foundation have lined up a set of free online seminars about primary (K–5) computing teaching and learning, covering a wide range of topics in primary education.

We invite you to join in these seminars so you can hear some of the most interesting researchers out there share their learnings, and discuss with us how we all can use the researchers’ work to make a difference in our Code Clubs.

The researchers will bring their learnings, but the knowledge you have as a Code Club educator or volunteer will be what makes these seminars unique! That is why we encourage you, whatever your background, to attend and share your experience.

Seminar topics that have caught our attention include:

  • How to teach data literacy in primary education
  • Strategies for giving appropriate feedback
  • How children learn coding through ScratchJr

The benefits of attending

Learning together is a key aspect of Code Club, and the online seminars provide you with a friendly learning environment with like-minded people from across the globe. You’ll gain valuable insights into how your youngest learners develop their computing knowledge, and you will be able to discuss with peers what this means for your Code Club in practical terms.

Expand your computer knowledge

Dr Bobby Whyte from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the speaker of the Tuesday 7 March seminar. In the session, he will give practical examples of how primary computing can be integrated into literacy education.

Here Bobby shares three benefits you will get out of attending the seminar series: 

  1. Participating in the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s computing education seminars is a great opportunity for you to hear about the latest research topics and ideas. The seminars are open to everyone who is interested in developing their own teaching practice and learning about innovative approaches.
  1. By joining us, you have the chance to spend time with like-minded practitioners and researchers from around the world. After each seminar presentation, you get the opportunity to participate in a breakout session where you can network and share ideas and best practice from your Code Club.
  1. The seminars are a chance to engage in a lively discussion about teaching and provide the chance for you to deepen your knowledge of computing education and expand your teaching toolkit. Researchers often present innovative practices and even share lesson materials, tools, and ideas that you can use in your Code Club. I can’t wait to see you there! 

You can check out the full line-up of seminar speakers online, and sign up to receive all the latest news and to attend a seminar soon.

Support the transition to secondary school with Code Club!

We understand that education recovery is currently at the top of the agenda for many teachers. Here’s how Code Club can support learners to gain the relevant coding skills to make the transition from primary to secondary computing education. 

Support your learners through Code Club  

In the UK, most children are now back to learning in the classroom instead of learning from home. We know that teachers are looking to understand what learning and experiences their students have missed during the pandemic and to find ways to help them catch up. 

Teachers tell us that learners who will transition from primary to secondary education this year are particularly at a disadvantage. Not only are they potentially behind on important building blocks of learning that they need to take with them to secondary school, but they have also lost out on chances to bond with others as a group, lead activities within their school, and celebrate their achievements. Running a Code Club will support your learners with all of this.

Help provide vital coding skills 

Code Club’s step-by-step Scratch projects, for example, are perfect for helping young people to grasp basic coding concepts, and are a great option for schools looking for transition activities. Sway Grantham, educator and Raspberry Pi Foundation Senior Learning Manager, explains how: 

“Running a Code Club is an easy way to support your learners. The first two Scratch modules give your learners an opportunity to understand the potential of computing, with creative projects that show the wider application of programming skills. This, paired with how they introduce sequence, selection, and repetition, will provide learners with a solid overview of programming before they transition to secondary school.”

The added extras that learners gain from attending Code Club

Whenever we speak to the Code Club community, the overwhelming take-home message is that the benefits of running and attending a Code Club are so much broader than coding and digital skills.  

Clubs provide a fun and informal environment for young people to develop lifelong skills: from collaborating and sharing learning, to problem solving and confidence building. These skills can be particularly important at times of change, such as the transition to a new school. 

Educator Janice, from Scotland, explains how Code Club has benefited their club members:

“I have always said that Code Club is transformational. It teaches young learners thinking skills like ordering, logic, and being precise, without them even knowing, as they are too busy having fun. Code Club gives them confidence to challenge perceptions, fix things, and help each other. I couldn’t think of a better set of skills and experiences for them to [take on] the next part of their educational journey”.

How we can support you 

From skills development to wellbeing, Code Club provides an ideal space to support children transitioning to secondary school and we want to make sure you have all the tools to support this.  

If you would like to restart your Code Club either online or in-person, or are looking to launch a new club this term, here’s a hand-picked selection of resources to help you:

If you have any ideas on how Code Club can help children transition to secondary school, or have any questions about getting your club up and running, drop our team an email. We’d love to hear from you.