Best Practice

How after-school coding clubs can benefit pupils

Science and computing Extra curricular Action research Curriculum
In an increasingly digital world, Suzanne Straw looks at research findings showing to what extent after-school coding clubs can support young people to develop skills and further their interest in coding

After-school clubs have become an integral part of learning in the past couple of decades. Successive governments have had an expectation that schools will provide extended provision, and part of their role is to enhance learning in the classroom and to build and develop other personal and study skills.

Code Club UK supports a nationwide network of volunteer and teacher-led after-school programming clubs. It was founded in 2012 and, in 2015, joined forces with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Code Clubs are run in schools and libraries, for children aged nine to 13 years. They run for around an hour a week during term-time and have about 15 participants who learn to programme by making games, animations, applications and websites. Code Club UK’s projects and materials support the teaching of Scratch, HTML/CSS and Python. The aim of Code Club is to develop children’s programming skills and to inspire them to consider programming and other digital careers in the future.

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