resources

Why is it important to cheer on learners’ coding achievements? We’ll tell you!

An important part of Code Club is celebrating learners’ victories — both big and small. 

By recognising the importance of achievements and what they mean to the young person, you can encourage them to further develop life skills such as resilience, independence, self-esteem, respect, and compassion. 

Why is it important?

Acknowledging success and hard work is a vital part of creating a safe learning environment. It creates a positive and supportive atmosphere where young coders can feel confident in their abilities and comfortable making mistakes that they can learn from.

Celebrating the achievements of young coders encourages and motivates them to continue developing their skills and explore other coding interests. It provides recognition for hard work and dedication, and can also be a source of pride that young people can share with their families. 

By highlighting the efforts of your club members, you not only raise the visibility of your Code Club, but you may inspire more young people to join or seek out other coding opportunities in your local area. Celebrating success can also drive your club members to advance their skills further, be confident to learn from others, and help build a community of peers who collaborate and share ideas. 

Where you can acknowledge effort in your club 

Within a Code Club setting there are many different ways that you can recognise the efforts made by young people. These can be big or small, so don’t wait for a huge milestone to be completed. The small successes are just as important too! 

You could positively reinforce activities in your club setting when a young person: 

  • Accomplishes something alone
  • Develops their coding skills 
  • Perseveres when tackling a challenge
  • Completes a task, project, or coding path
  • Shows creativity in their coding
  • Supports a peer to solve a problem
  • Leads by example, e.g. helps you set up and tidy away your club 

There are lots of ways you can then celebrate these efforts or achievements, for example:

  1. Print one of the many cool certificates on your club dashboard and present them in your club or in an achievement assembly 
  1. Run an end-of-term showcase, where learners can show their coding achievements to parents and carers
  1. Write an article for a school newsletter or link into a wider school recognition scheme, like ‘star of the week!’  

Never forget the importance of recognition, what it means to a child and the impact it can have on their development. Share how you mark the milestones in your Code Club by using the hashtag #MyCodeClub on Twitter and Facebook. 

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.

Top three resources for running a vibrant Code Club 

Launching your new Code Club or resuming a club that has been paused for an extended time might make you feel a little apprehensive. That’s OK! Tamasin Greenough Graham, Head of Code Club, shares three resources that will help you run your Code Club with confidence.

A child and adult looking at a laptop screen.

Picking my top three resources is quite a challenge as we have so many to choose from! There is something to meet your every need. Please check them out on our resource page — it’s full of helpful materials like crib sheets to guide you through our projects, certificates, sample letters, and so much more.

Log in to your account, head to your dashboard, and scroll down to the resources section. 

Resource one: Club organisers’ guide

If you’re new to Code Club or are starting back after a break, the go-to document is our club organisers’ guide. 

This guide walks you through the important first steps you’ll need to plan and set up your Code Club with ease. It also acts as a brilliant refresher if you’re starting your Code Club after a break. 

Pages from the club organiser pack.

Resource two: First session guide

From your feedback, we understand that running your first session can sometimes feel a bit daunting, as well as being an extra task at the beginning of a busy term! To help with this, we’ve created a new step-by-step first session guide to give you everything you need in one place.

Based on the beginners ‘Space talk‘ Scratch project, you’ll find in the guide:

  • A session plan
  • Simple and practical advice to help your prepare for the session
  • All your preparation for the session has been broken down into small chunks
  • New activities to support your coders’ learning 

The NEW unplugged activities link to ‘Space talk’ and are great to hand out to coders who finish the project towards the end of a session, or as activities to try at home.

This guide makes the first session so easy to run. I know I will be using it to give me confidence that my first Code Club session back will be fun and have a positive impact on the learners. 

Front pages from the first session pack; running your first Code Club session, Create and colour, I spy and Space memory game.

Resource three: 250+ coding projects

Where to start? Well, that is easy, I promise! Our ‘3, 2, 1, Make!’ project paths are carefully designed so that as young people progress, they develop their coding skills as well as their independence to create projects that matter to them.

We have paths about Scratch, Python, Unity, physical computing, and how to get started with a Raspberry Pi Pico. Each path contains six projects that are guaranteed by our young testers to be great fun!

You can learn more about ‘3,2,1, Make!’ and the pedagogy behind these projects in this blog.

Bonus resource: Certificates!

I know this is my top three, but I couldn’t write this blog post without mentioning our certificates! 

Recognising success and achievements, however big or small, is such a vital part of Code Club. We’ve got a huge selection of certificates to celebrate everything from superstar coders to completing a whole project path. 

A selection of Code Club certificates.

We can’t wait to get back to Code Club and see all the creative projects from your Code Club members. Share how you’re getting on using the hashtag #MyCodeClub or by tagging us on Facebook or Twitter. If we see your posts, we might even send you some stickers!

Let’s get coding! 

If there is a resource that you’d like to see in our library, share it with the team and write to us at support@codeclub.org