{"id":1246,"date":"2021-06-25T14:56:38","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T13:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2021-10-01T16:45:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T15:45:12","slug":"a-code-club-in-every-school-coding-the-future-north-ayrshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/2021\/06\/25\/a-code-club-in-every-school-coding-the-future-north-ayrshire\/","title":{"rendered":"A CODE CLUB IN EVERY SCHOOL: CODING THE FUTURE – NORTH AYRSHIRE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Coding the Future<\/strong> – initiative to allow all 9-13 year olds to experience coding (@NAC_CodeClubs)<\/a><\/p>\n

This post was written by Rosslyn Lee (@RosJLee)<\/a>, Digital Skills Coordinator for <\/span>North Ayrshire Council. The programme has delivered Computing Science to primary and secondary learners across the authority. <\/span>Most of the knowledge came from the team’s personal interests in coding and digital. Code Club Scotland and Barefoot Computing provided training that supported the programme.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Coding the Future has had an incredible impact on learners in North Ayrshire, and they have been unable to fulfil demand for code clubs and summer camps because of the high level of interest. Pupils learned a variety of digital skills apart from coding and was captured in photos, videos, saving programs and sharing and demonstrations to adults.<\/div>\n
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Coding the Future – North Ayrshire Council<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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In May 2017, North Ayrshire Council made a pledge to tackle the digital skills gap by providing access to Code Clubs for all learners aged 9\u201313 by August 2020.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Coding the Future\u2019 project team, including staff from Customer and Digital Services and Education has the aim of expanding and supporting Code Clubs across the authority.\u00a0 The first step was to look for volunteer staff to become STEM Ambassadors.\u00a0 North Ayrshire Council allows their staff to volunteer within the community for 14 hours per calendar year.<\/p>\n

Approximately 40 staff became STEM Ambassadors and were part of a \u2018train the trainer\u2019 approach.\u00a0 Their objective was to support schools to set up their own clubs, taking a step back once the staff felt confident to run the clubs by themselves. \u00a0We had some training from Code Club Scotland to start us off.\u00a0 This eventually led to a core group of 8-10 people delivering support to schools.<\/p>\n

In addition to this training, some staff attended a Barefoot Computing session.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schools were advised that they could request help from a volunteer to start up a Code Club.\u00a0 We tried to work this on a geographical basis, depending on where the volunteer lived. Some schools set up weekly clubs for a term, some for an academic year and some on a more ad hoc basis.<\/p>\n

In addition to individual school clubs, two of the team ran a club most Saturdays at Irvine Library which was always well attended, in fact at times oversubscribed.<\/p>\n

We ran two very successful Summer Code Camps in 2018 and 2019.\u00a0 These ran for a week in July and operated from 10am until 3pm each day, with lunches provided by North Ayrshire Council.\u00a0 The limit on participants was 25, although we could have organised a couple of camps such was the interest.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this was not possible as staff were using holidays to run the camp.<\/p>\n

At camp, the young people had a variety of activities to choose from including Scratch coding, Python, Raspberry Pis,\u00a0 Microbits, Spheros, Virtual Reality headsets, Merge Cube AR, 3D printing, 360 degree photography and video making.<\/p>\n

At the end of the week we held a challenge \u2013 participants had to make their own robot using a Sphero, plastic cups and various other craft items including balloons.\u00a0 We invited parents to come in on the Friday afternoon to enable the young people to show them what they had experienced and created during the week.\u00a0 We also had visits from the Leader of the Council, a couple of NAC Heads of Service and two of the Digital Skills Team from Education Scotland.<\/p>\n

During these visits our young people very ably demonstrated and taught our visitors about the devices they had been using during the week, including a safety talk about the use of VR Headsets.<\/p>\n

We also ran a successful Learn to Code Day for staff one Saturday in November 2019, supported and funded by a STEM Grant from Education Scotland.\u00a0 Activities ranged from unplugged coding to Raspberry Pis and Codapillars to Python.\u00a0 Participants were from primary and secondary schools as well as members of our Family Learning Team.<\/p>\n

In December 2019 as part of Computing Science Education Week, we held an event where North Ayrshire Council employees could bring their children into work at the end of the day, to learn how to code.\u00a0 This session attracted children of varying ages and we had children coding with Scratch as well as using devices such as BlueBots, Dash and Spheros.<\/p>\n

We were delighted that the project won the North Ayrshire Achieves Award \u2018Skills for Life\u2019 in 2018 which recognised the work we had already done and our ambitions for the future.<\/p>\n

In February 2020 we were included in EdTech50 for 2020 as one of the projects in the UK shaping technology across the UK.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the initiative was hit by COVID early in 2020 and has not yet resumed. \u00a0\u00a0However we hope to run a Summer Camp in 2022 and depending on the virus, be able to support individual schools- in session 21-22 with clubs and staff with training.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Coding the Future – North Ayrshire Council<\/strong><\/p>\n

In May 2017, North Ayrshire Council made a pledge to tackle the digital skills gap by providing access to Code Clubs for all learners aged 9\u201313 by August 2020.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Coding the Future\u2019 project team, including staff from Customer and Digital Services and Education has the aim of expanding and supporting Code Clubs across the authority.\u00a0 The first step was to look for volunteer staff to become STEM Ambassadors.\u00a0 North Ayrshire Council allows their staff to volunteer within the community for 14 hours per calendar year.<\/p>\n

Approximately 40 staff became STEM Ambassadors and were part of a \u2018train the trainer\u2019 approach.\u00a0 Their objective was to support schools to set up their own clubs, taking a step back once the staff felt confident to run the clubs by themselves. \u00a0We had some training from Code Club Scotland to start us off.\u00a0 This eventually led to a core group of 8-10 people delivering support to schools.<\/p>\n

In addition to this training, some staff attended a Barefoot Computing session.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schools were advised that they could request help from a volunteer to start up a Code Club.\u00a0 We tried to work this on a geographical basis, depending on where the volunteer lived. Some schools set up weekly clubs for a term, some for an academic year and some on a more ad hoc basis.<\/p>\n

In addition to individual school clubs, two of the team ran a club most Saturdays at Irvine Library which was always well attended, in fact at times oversubscribed.<\/p>\n

We ran two very successful Summer Code Camps in 2018 and 2019.\u00a0 These ran for a week in July and operated from 10am until 3pm each day, with lunches provided by North Ayrshire Council.\u00a0 The limit on participants was 25, although we could have organised a couple of camps such was the interest.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this was not possible as staff were using holidays to run the camp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At camp, the young people had a variety of activities to choose from including Scratch coding, Python, Raspberry Pis,\u00a0 Microbits, Spheros, Virtual Reality headsets, Merge Cube AR, 3D printing, 360 degree photography and video making.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the end of the week we held a challenge \u2013 participants had to make their own robot using a Sphero, plastic cups and various other craft items including balloons.\u00a0 We invited parents to come in on the Friday afternoon to enable the young people to show them what they had experienced and created during the week.\u00a0 We also had visits from the Leader of the Council, a couple of NAC Heads of Service and two of the Digital Skills Team from Education Scotland.<\/p>\n

During these visits our young people very ably demonstrated and taught our visitors about the devices they had been using during the week, including a safety talk about the use of VR Headsets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We also ran a successful Learn to Code Day for staff one Saturday in November 2019, supported and funded by a STEM Grant from Education Scotland.\u00a0 Activities ranged from unplugged coding to Raspberry Pis and Codapillars to Python.\u00a0 Participants were from primary and secondary schools as well as members of our Family Learning Team.<\/p>\n

In December 2019 as part of Computing Science Education Week, we held an event where North Ayrshire Council employees could bring their children into work at the end of the day, to learn how to code.\u00a0 This session attracted children of varying ages and we had children coding with Scratch as well as using devices such as BlueBots, Dash and Spheros.<\/p>\n

We were delighted that the project won the North Ayrshire Achieves Award \u2018Skills for Life\u2019 in 2018 which recognised the work we had already done and our ambitions for the future.<\/p>\n

In February 2020 we were included in EdTech50 for 2020 as one of the projects in the UK shaping technology across the UK.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the initiative was hit by COVID early in 2020 and has not yet resumed. \u00a0\u00a0However we hope to run a Summer Camp in 2022 and depending on the virus, be able to support individual schools- in session 21-22 with clubs and staff with training.<\/p>\n

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Coding the Future – initiative to allow all 9-13 year olds to experience coding (@NAC_CodeClubs) This post was written by Rosslyn Lee (@RosJLee), Digital Skills Coordinator for North Ayrshire Council. The programme has delivered Computing Science to primary and secondary learners across the authority. Most of the knowledge came from the team’s personal interests in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61927,"featured_media":1250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,1],"tags":[18,66,67],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coding","category-uncategorized","tag-community","tag-communityprimary","tag-communitysecondary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/public\/computingscience\/uploads\/sites\/9355\/2021\/06\/25145055\/NAC-code-the-future.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1252,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions\/1252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/computingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}