Progression in Code Clubs: What matters to you?

Although Code Clubs are fun and informal, some clubs like to observe and track the progress that their members make. Over the summer, we consulted members of our global Code Club community to find out what you see and value as progress.

We also talked about the tools available to help you observe and celebrate progress. Here’s what you told us!

Melbourn Code Club

What kind of progress do you value seeing in your Code Club?

The progress that our community talked about most was growth in confidence and independence, followed closely by growth in “creativity and innovativeness”. 

Firstly, I want to see our learners being happy and enjoying the club. I like to see the students’ skills develop. I like to see them make their own things to build their skills beyond the tutorials. Rhiwbina Library, Wales

The most interesting thing for us is to observe if students are changing the projects we propose, and if they are creating their own things away from the club. Also we’re interested in stimulating teacher confidence in using Code Club tools outside of the club environment. Tagusvalley, Portugal

I’d like to see them code better and design applications that have direct application in the real world. Faridabad, India

Club members from St Paul’s C of E Academy, Sandwell

Our community also wanted to see coders “tackling and grasping more challenging concepts” as well as growing their  “problem solving, debugging, and critical thinking” skills.

I like to see the young people tackling increasingly complex projects, and having the confidence to move from Scratch to Python, or to try physical computing with Picos or micro:bits. Cranmere Primary, England

What progress would you like to keep track of?

Clubs are interested in easy, automatic ways to track progress. The progress most clubs wanted to keep track of was young people’s development of “programming skills” followed by their progression through Code Club projects and pathways

I would like to be able to see what kinds of functions students were able to add to a program independently. For example, if a student used an if/else conditional appropriately or if they used a function that they created. Dr Knox Middle School, Canada

Specific skills, such as using selection, sequence, repetition, and variables.
Kingston St. Mary Primary School, UK

I’d like to see pupil progress along the various learning pathways. This can easily allow a club facilitator to know who’s progressing and at what pace. Crosshall Junior School, UK

Children having fun with code!

Other community members told us they were also interested in tracking the development of computational logic as well as learning confidence and independence; however, some were not keen on tracking at all. 

I don’t feel the need to track progress at all. It is a non-formal club, not a lesson. Anonymous

Why track progress?

Our community members expressed a general consensus that tracking progress increased awareness of learners’ progression and several people discussed other positives to monitoring development.

For example, Fiona Lindsay from Hillside School in Scotland valued automatic tracking of individual progress as she felt this would give her a better appreciation of how each child is progressing and who is able to then support newer members of the club.

I’d really like an automatic track of where they are in a project, so I can monitor this, to help me keep better track of where each pupil or pair actually is in their learning journey.

Meanwhile, Sue Gray from Fakenham Library said she uses a spreadsheet to see who has attended her club, how often they’ve come, and what projects they’ve already done. This has helped her to see who is ready to move on to the Introduction to Python path or other projects beyond the Introduction to Scratch pathway.

Similarly, Nick Nurock from Thomas’s Academy felt it would be helpful to receive an automatic reminder of which blocks or commands had been used successfully in a previous week so as to know which concepts to move onto (or remain on) in the following week. 

How to track progress in your Code Club

One way to follow your members’ progress is to create pupil accounts. These enable young people’s work to be saved, so you and they can revisit projects and see how much they have progressed.

You can use Scratch accounts to save projects on our Scratch pathways and Raspberry Pi accounts or Trinket accounts to save projects on our Python and Web design pathways. With a Raspberry Pi account, learners’ progress is tracked automatically through all our pathways. Find out more about this on our digital progress tracking FAQ.

You spoke…we listened! More ways to celebrate progress

We’re excited to share two new resources that we’ve developed in response to some of the needs expressed by members during our community consultations. We hope that they will help you to observe and celebrate progress in your club — no matter how small!

  1. The Unique Feedback certificate is blank and editable. You can tailor it to whatever is valuable to you, to recognise and celebrate your learners.
  2. The accounts permissions letter: this is a template letter for you to obtain parental permission for learners to use accounts during or outside of Code Club sessions. We’ve updated it to include the Raspberry Pi Foundation Code Editor and Raspberry Pi accounts so you can use the automatic tracking features to monitor your learners’ progress. This editable version of the accounts permission letter can be sent to parents by email, while this printable version can be printed and filled out manually.
Unique feedback certificate

We hope that these two new resources will help you keep track of what matters to you. If you have another way to monitor progress that you’d like to share with us, you can contact us at support@codeclub.org 

Our Code Club rules! How to have fun and set boundaries

Creating guidelines for your Code Club can be a simple way to help your young coders make the most of the non-formal environment that Code Club offers. In this blog, we share a few ideas to help you get started.

Code Clubs are fun, creative, and at times wonderfully chaotic spaces. If you’re a teacher running a club at your school, it’s not always easy to transition from the role you take during class time, to a club leader hosting a more relaxed space. If you are a Code Club volunteer, there can also be challenges with entering a school as a new and unfamiliar face.

A classroom setting with young people sat at tables working on laptops.
Melbourn Code Club

Club leader Janine Kirk at the King’s Academy in Stoke-on-Trent shared how the informal element of Code Club has changed the learning experience for both her and her students:

“In classrooms it’s often quite structured, whereas in Code Club I can be a little bit more free and they can get to know me. We can have a bit of a joke – the students really enjoy that!”

Code Clubs should be less structured than the school day, but encouraging an atmosphere where everyone takes care of themselves, club equipment, and each other can help turn a good Code Club into a great one! One way to do this is to get your young coders to come up with a set of club rules with you. This helps create a Code Club that everyone can enjoy, whilst providing boundaries that keep your club safe, happy, and fun.

Create your club rules together

At the start of your Code Club journey, you’ll need to spend some time figuring out how best to run your club and then you can fine tune the details as you go. Involving your young coders in creating your club guidelines is a simple icebreaker activity, and being involved in the process can provide them with a sense of ownership and expectation around their behaviour.

Three boys in a classroom gathered around one laptop, laughing.
Working together to set club rules

Spend ten minutes during your first session discussing how your Code Club should run, with club attendees giving their ideas on how to make that vision a reality. Right from the start, you can use this as a chance to model expected behaviours: for example, should your club members raise their hands to share an answer, or are you happy for them to call out ideas?

Once you’ve decided on your final list, you can write them up using the “Our Code Club rules” template in your dashboard, or you could ask your club members to design their own reminders of the rules using paper and coloured pens or pencils.

Club rules template. Be kind, Listen to other, Have fun.
Club rules template

All ideas are welcome!

It’s up to you to choose ideas that will let your coders and Code Club thrive. Code Clubs should be fun and safe spaces, so your club rules could cover anything from behaviours that encourage exploration and imagination, to requests outlining how everyone should set up and pack away equipment each week.

If you need some inspiration to get started, here are a few ideas you could suggest:

  • Be kind, respectful, and treat others the way you would like to be treated.
  • During Code Club sessions, you can call the Club Leader by their first name. 
  • If someone is talking, make sure to listen. It’s okay to chat to each other during Code Club, but we listen quietly when someone is speaking.  
  • See three, before me. If your code isn’t working:
    • 1) Check you have completed all the steps 
    • 2) Compare your code to the example in the instructions, and
    • 3) Ask the person next to you for help, before you ask the Club Leader.
  • Be mindful of your behaviour online. Don’t share any personal information about yourself and follow any guidance shared. 
  • Take care of the equipment. Don’t eat or drink near computers, and put everything away neatly at the end of the session. 
  • Have fun and be creative! Enjoy learning new things and don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild!   

What rules will you include in your Code Club? Let us know on social media using the hashtag #MyCodeClub

Our survey says…A look at the results 

The summer is an exciting time for us at Code Club as we receive the results from our Annual Survey and we learn about your club and your opinion of Code Club. 

Thank you to everyone who filled in the survey; your responses were insightful. Read on for a closer look at the highlights and most significant findings that we’ve uncovered.

Children sat at desks in a classroom looking at laptops.
Melbourn Code Club

Where and who: getting to know clubs and their leaders

We’re interested in building a picture of what clubs look like, where in the world they run, and who participates in them. 

First, we found that there’s a real global mix: 69% of responses were from clubs in the UK, but we also heard from clubs from 31 other countries, from Afghanistan to Canada!  

You told us that being part of our global community is important to you: 77% of you reported that you find being part of the community motivating, and 81% of you have found that community beneficial for answering questions and solving problems.

Next, we found that just over 50% of responses were from school educators and the rest were from volunteers who go into their local school or library to run their club. Over half (53%) of club leaders identify as female and we were pleased to discover that, again, the proportion of Code Club members who identify as female has increased, to 42%. This is fantastic and we’re very proud of this achievement.

If you’re interested in engaging with fellow club leaders from around the world, consider joining our community on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn. Share your questions and success stories to connect and interact with like-minded individuals.

The impact of Code Club

We were overjoyed to hear about the positive impacts that coming to Code Club has on your young learners: 94% of you told us that you saw positive changes in club members’ personal confidence. You also reported that attending Code Club helps your learners: 

  • Increase independence in their learning (91%) 
  • Develop their creative thinking (90%)
  • See the usefulness of computing (90%)
  • Increase their feeling of belonging (81%) 

We also discovered that, when thinking about digital technologies:

  • 94% of you agreed that club members’ skills in computing and programming had increased
  • 93% agreed that your club members’ confidence in learning about computing and programming had increased
  • 92% agreed that your club members’ interest in computing had increased
  • 87% agreed that club members’ ability to solve problems with computers had increased

Why do schools run a Code Club?

We asked educators about how their school benefits from running a Code Club and discovered that 84% valued the increase in visibility of computer science in their school and 61% valued the contribution to a broad extra curricular programme.

What happens at Code Club sessions?

We were not surprised to find out that the majority of clubs (95%) use Scratch in their sessions, but we were pleased to hear that you have been also working with Micro:bits (58%), Python (47%), and HTML/CSS (30%).

We heard a lot of love for our projects, with 81% of clubs using them mostly or exclusively. You told us that you found them easy to follow, and liked the layout:

“[We find the]..clear coloured blocks and guidance tips useful. The use of expandable information windows is good as it saves scrolling back and forth.”

How can we support you?

This is one of the most important questions that we asked you. We want to help you run fun, successful clubs, and are keen to hear your ideas for how we can support you further. 

We found that 75% of you have participated in training offered by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. This includes our Code Club online workshops, the ‘Prepare to run a Code Club‘ course, and any of the courses provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation on the global online learning platform edX.

We’ve had some excellent feedback and ideas about how we could do more to help, and we’re going to work on a few of these suggestions in the next couple of months. Watch this space!

We always enjoy hearing your ideas on how we can assist you in running your Code Club. If you missed the survey but have an idea about how we can support you, please reach out to the team by emailing us at support@codeclub.org.