Evolving Code Club training workshops: A journey of iteration and expansion

Supporting our community is one of the key functions of the Code Club team. We are here to provide you with the resources, knowledge, and confidence to run successful Code Clubs. For example, we run training sessions that give new educators all the information they need to establish their own Code Club.

At the start of 2023, all our Code Club training sessions were three-hour webinars. We thought that a longer session would let us fit in everything — from the information needed to guide educators and volunteers through starting a club, to activities to explore all the tools and resources we offer and build confidence in the knowledge and skills that help you run a club. But we weren’t sure that this was the best way to support you and so we asked our community “What works best for you?”

Your feedback was amazing and so valuable to us! Based on what you told us, we updated the training we offer to create something that better fits your schedule and suits your needs.

New workshop format and times

When we pulled together all the feedback you gave us, some patterns emerged. Participants wanted more condensed sessions to fit into their schedules more easily. So we broke down the original three-hour sessions into two separate, one-hour workshops and offered additional slots at different times so that we had more opportunities to bring the global community together.

We moved from a webinar format to more practical workshops, with a whole session dedicated to a codealong to ensure that everyone felt confident in even the most complex ideas.

Simple but effective changes

These changes, while simple, proved transformative. Having time to reflect between the two workshops enabled deeper thinking about the content, and we found that leaders came to the second session — the practical codealong activity — more confident and ready to learn. The additional time slots also increased the global reach of each session, with participants from as far afield as Togo and Myanmar joining us. We’ve really loved having so many different voices and sharing so many different club experiences.

Still evolving thanks to community feedback

Because you are all so generous with feedback, we were able to keep iterating on our new workshops’ content and delivery, tweaking it as we heard new ideas from the community. We’re proud to say that the training never stays the same — it continues to develop as we hear more from you.

Empowered by this feedback-driven approach, we expanded our new workshops format to cover other technologies, with workshops on HTML & CSS, Python, AI & Scratch, and Micro:bit, all stemming from the original Scratch-focused workshop. We’ve been excited to see so much of the community taking the opportunity to upskill and add more advanced options into their Code Clubs.

The outcome: A comprehensive learning journey

Today, we are proud that our workshops are the result of community collaboration. What began as a singular three-hour session has developed into a series of dynamic, interactive workshops catering to the wide interests of our growing community of educators and volunteers. 

Darren Bayliss, Code Club Programme Coordinator Ireland, led the development and delivers most of the session. He has drawn not only on the invaluable community feedback, but also on a decade of experience running his Code Club to make this transition a success. He also notes that this journey was highly enriching for him as it brought back many long-forgotten tips and tricks he could share during the workshops. Most importantly, it has been great fun!  

Darren, was amazing. Really easy to follow training and explained everything that was needed. Great to be trained by someone so passionate. Thank you so much, I am feeling much more confident.
(anonymous feedback)

“Just a note to say thanks for the two Python workshops. I found them very useful, particularly as you were able to include your real-world experience of supporting Python in your own Code Clubs.”

Phil Wade, Code Club volunteer @ Clevedon Library

Join us in 2024

In 2023, we ran 41 workshops attended by 1,187 people, including both experienced club leaders and new members of our global community. We’re really looking forward to growing this in 2024!

If you would like to join us to learn together, check out the training pages on our website. Sessions are advertised about a month in advance, and feature in our monthly events email, which is sent to everyone in the community.

We’d love to see you and hear about your club experiences as we all develop our skills and knowledge! Join us in this exciting journey as we continue to code the future together.