Part of our Education Programme is to teach children to program or code computers. We have a series of weekend Code Clubs for children from the age of 9 to 18. The clubs are for complete beginners through to those with existing experience and expertise.
The “starter” club is designed for children aged 9 to 11 with none, or little, coding experience and runs on Saturday mornings from 10.00 to 12.00. The clubs use a variety of training schemes, including the national Code Club (www.code-club.org) teaching materials and projects using the SCRATCH and PYTHON languages. As children progress, they start to use HTML and CSS to build web sites and gradually progress to advanced PYTHON. The club provide the computer equipment and all necessary software, we also provide soft drinks and biscuits during a mid morning break.
We also have a more advanced club, suitable for 10 to 16 year olds who have already learnt to code in SCRATCH and now want to develop more complicated solutions using PYTHON and C++. This club also runs from 10.00 until 12.00 on a Saturday.
The Museum Coding Club membership costs £60 incl VAT, a term ( 10 sessions) including refreshments. Children can start part-way through a term on a pro-rata basis. Missed sessions are still paid for, as it is a termly membership fee. The clubs welcome both girls and boys.
The clubs run broadly in line with school terms, running for five weeks, then a one or two week break for half term and then a further five weeks. We operate a Spring Term, a Summer term and an Autumn term.
When children become confident in PYTHON and C++ they can join the ten-week Electronics Course. Here they will learn the basics of electronic design and start to develop projects using electronics interfaced to Raspberry Pi, Micro:Bit and Arduino computers. The course last ten weeks and runs on a Saturday from 12 noon to 2.00pm. The fee for the Electronics course is £100 per child and this includes all the consumable electronics and refreshments. This course runs several times a year. We only take ten children at a time, and it is very popular, so do not delay in emailing us to get your child’s name down for the next course. Our next course will start in February 2020.
All of the Club Leaders and Assistants are STEM Ambassadors and hold Enhanced DBS Certificates for working with children.
Why are we running these clubs? We want as many children as possible to experience the fun of coding, to see how computers can be used to solve everyday problems and be part of design and engineering projects.
Hopefully, this will encourage some children to consider engineering and science as future career possibilities. We are living in a technical world and the next generation of software and electronics engineers will have amazing career opportunities. What is most important of all, it does not matter if you are a boy or girl, the career opportunities and potential rewards are the same. The skills that your children will learn and the “hands on” experience that they will gain in our clubs are unlikely to be found in any schools, either as part of the curriculum, or in after-school clubs.
Coding Club meeting dates for 2020
Spring Term
January 11th 2020 to 28th March 2020
Half Term break 20th and 27th February 2020
Easter break 4th to 18th April 2020
Summer Term
30th April 2020 to 11th July 2020
Half Term break 28th May and 4th June 2020
Autumn Term
12th September 2020 to 28th November 2020
Half Term break 24th and 31st October 2020
If your child is interested in joining our Coding Club please click this link.
Note for children: A parent / guardian will need to confirm that they are happy that you can join before you can attend a club.