Code Club is a nationwide network of free volunteer-led after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11. If you would like a Code Club in your school then register as a venue at codeclub.org.uk and search for a volunteer in your area.

Learn more about their mission below.

'Code Club create projects for volunteers to teach at after school coding clubs. The projects we make teach children how to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and websites. Our volunteers go to their local primary school for an hour a week and teach one project a week. Code Club is for children aged 9-11 who are in years 5 & 6 of primary school in the UK.

Why Code Club exist

Learning to code is an important skill now we’re living in a digital age. It’s not just enough for children to know how to use technology. They should know how it works too.

Learning to code doesn't just mean you can become a developer, it strengthens problem solving skills and logical thinking and supports key academic subjects such as science, maths and technology.

Most primary school teachers don't know how to code and so they can't pass on these skills to their students. That's where we come in.

Currently we have around 750 clubs and at an average of 15 children per club we've got over 11,000 children coding since the launch of our first term in September 2012 and 40% of those are girls.

We'd like to put a Code Club in every single primary school in the country. There are 23,000 primary schools in the UK, it's a big task but we think we know how to do it.'

Visit Code Club's website

Update - 1st May 2013

Network access has been restored and CPU processors are working as they should.

We will keep you updated when BT have more information about the root cause of this issue.

Update on the ongoing network issue

On behalf of our provider, BT, Northern Grid is very sorry for the service interruption and knows first hand the challenges and pressures teaching colleagues face when a crucial element of a learning opportunity is missed because ‘the internet went down’ and are working hard, on your behalf, to ensure this fault is rectified as soon as possible.

Since yesterday, a number of actions have been undertaken. In summary:

• BT firewall engineers have been working (and continue to work) with the vendor support team in diagnosing the problem.
• Investigations confirm that we are experiencing a Denial of Service attack though the source currently is not clear. Therefore the central firewall has effectively been overloaded with spurious traffic from a source external to Northern Grid.
• Northern Grid’s company board met yesterday to discuss the problem.
• The incident has been escalated to the Chief Operating Officer of BT Global Services for Local and Devolved Government. 
• A full root cause analysis is now underway and we expect that work to be complete within 24 hours. This work will inform our next steps.

We will continue to issue updates as and when we receive them.

An app created by a UK teenager has been acquired by web giant Yahoo in a deal the BBC understands to be worth "dozens of millions" of pounds.

žžSimon Finch, eSafety Officer, Northern Grid for Learning, has been awarded the prestigious Naace Impact Award for Leadership for his commitment to ensuring a safe and supportive learning environment for the education sector.

Competition info here.