Joe Haig is a lead BBC staff volunteer at BBC MediaCityUK running after-school coding for primary school children. The free classes are run in term time in conjunction with Codeclub.org.uk which provides the teaching materials for programming animations, computer games and websites.
I saw the first announcement for Code Club on Twitter in 2012 and became involved before I joined the BBC.
Code Club is a nationwide network of volunteer-run after-school coding clubs aimed at helping children to learn computer coding. The majority takes place in schools or in community centres where local children can attend.
There are now over 2500 Code Clubs across the United Kingdom, and since 2013 they have also been expanding worldwide.
When the opportunity to set up a Code Club came with BBC Outreach I organised one for three local primary schools.
During term time each week they bring 30 children between them to participate with a team of BBC volunteers from BBC Salford. Most of the school children had little or no prior programming experience before they started Code Club.
A number of key ideas are covered at Key Stage 2 and these are introduced in worksheets. For the sessions we help the children work through the worksheets by answering any questions they have and try to help them understand some of the more difficult concepts.
So far we have been working with Scratch - a graphical programming language specifically designed to introduce children to the basics of programming. We provide a number of worksheets that go through the process of creating a game and we encourage the children to try things out for themselves. A number of children have even set up their own accounts on the Scratch website.
BBC Volunteer Adam Braimah helping children at BBC MediaCityUK code club
According to Olivia - 'It has helped me to learn more things on Scratch, so when I go on it at home I can use the things I have learnt from the club … I liked building my own games.’
In one of the games, they draw a maze and then program a boat to follow the mouse pointer so that they can guide it through the maze. This particularly inspired Harley who said, ‘I thought it was amazing. My favourite activity was creating the boat race.’
The first seven weeks have ended and everyone has very much enjoyed the experience and is looking forward to beginning again in September. We will continue to use Scratch after the summer and then will move onto Python and HTML.
The feedback from the teachers from the schools has been very positive. ‘The club has been very beneficial to the children and has given them the opportunity to develop their skills further with the new computing curriculum. They have enjoyed developing their skills on Scratch, and I have been able to see their progress over the course of the club. We definitely have more confident children in the last few sessions.’
BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the BBC closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.
