An interview with a Code Club volunteer
Date posted
17 October 2018
Reading time
8 Minutes
An interview with a Code Club volunteer
The Kainos Academy gives people a chance to create. Innovate. Explore. Play. Share new ideas and notions. Inspire themselves and one another at any age or stage. Whether they're a school student with big dreams, an entrepreneur with grand plans, or a digital professional with high hopes.
We share our knowledge in outreach programs and events to fuel digital inspiration. We provide training to teach new skills, expertise to develop existing talents, and a chance to try out new things and get involved in hands-on learning.
One of the organisations we work with is Code Club, a nationwide network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11. Each year, many of our staff volunteer to run one of these clubs, visiting a local school of their choice one afternoon a week for 10-12 weeks, together dedicating hundreds of hours a year to this fantastic organisation.
Martin is one of our longest-standing volunteers, originally getting involved because he saw an appetite for this at his daughter's school. We asked him a few questions on his experience.
Why did you decide to run a CodeClub?
A few people in the office had already signed up and were actively running Code Clubs. When I heard how positively they were speaking about it, I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. I also had been looking for the opportunity to do something for our local primary school. Schools are stretched these days - teachers do not have the industry experience and skills that we do, so if I could help do something to alleviate this, then it was a no-brainer really.
What was your experience of running a Code Club like?
Initially, I was really nervous those first couple of lessons were challenging. 18 children per lesson with five or six hands up at the same time, I was spinning round the classroom like horses on a carousel! Over time, as the children got more familiar with the software (Scratch) and more confident in their on abilities, it settled down and was very enjoyable. As I run more Code Club sessions, I've learned how to make those first few sessions a bit easier for myself simple things like:
-
- getting the pupils to bring a pencil and tick off each task once they've completed it
- do the very first lesson with the pupils one step at a time, making sure no-one gets left behind
- a five minute recap at the start of each lesson on what we learned last week, what we found easy and what we found difficult.