Spotlight Club — June 2024
Kensington Neighbourhood House Code Club is our spotlight club for June. Rebecca and Lachlan share their story with us.
Tell us about your Code Club
Kensington Neighbourhood House runs two Code Clubs a week — one on Monday and one on Wednesday. Session times are for an hour in the afternoon and children from our two local primary schools attend. Each class generally has 10 to 12 children aged from 8 to 12 years. Each session runs with two or three Code Club volunteers to ensure everyone gets the support they need.
Why did you start a Code Club?
Parents in our local community approached the Neighbourhood House in 2016 asking if we could start a club. We began with one club in Term 1 of that year. By Term 2, it was clear there was high demand in the community, so we established a second club. We have run two clubs a week for the past 9 years! We have a fantastic team of Code Club Volunteers. One of our volunteers — Lachlan — has been tutoring since 2021. Lachlan likes volunteering to share his passion for technology with others, particularly highlighting that this is something that young people can pursue if they enjoy it, whether it be as a hobbyist or even a potential career path.
I keep coming back to Code Club because
In short, it’s really fun! It’s very rewarding to see the ‘ah ha!’ moments when the students understand a new concept.
My Code Club highlight
At the end of the year, we spend a few sessions with the students helping them make their own games without following a set lesson plan. It’s awesome to see everything come together, watch them share the games around, and have an end-of-year party.
My tips for running a club
At the start of the lesson show the students what they’ll be making, it helps motivate them to get through the first few building blocks and make something interesting. Also generally try to keep it fun. This isn’t a school lesson so encourage them to have a play with the code and help them out if they get stuck.
How we share and celebrate our work
We have and end-of-year party, showing off what the students have done. We also save projects online so that they can show their parents and siblings back home.
Favourite Code Club Projects
My personal favourites are the scratch modules “Clone Wars” and “Dodgeball”. They take a little while to build up to but these ones are essentially full games that we can build and play in class. It’s interesting to see all the variations that the students come up with and share with each other.
The coding our club does
We utilise many platforms — Scratch, Python and HTML & CSS.
Favourite Code Club resources
Scratch lesson plans are our favourite resource to use.
Thanks Rebecca and Lachlan for sharing your club with us. And to Hamish as well!
Happy coding!
Kaye
Manager, Code Club Australia
