09 May Is Coding the most important language in the world?
Do we need to teach our children how to code?
Hands up if you’ve ever felt perplexed by your young child’s requests to set up a YouTube channel or to access games or websites that you just know nothing about? There is a shift happening in our world ..our primary school children are no longer slavishly playing games on their computers, but they are now learning how to manipulate, create and control all of their devices themselves. More and more of the world around us is being controlled by technology and technological innovation – now it’s time for us to equip our children for the future!
It can be overwhelming, leaving parents with a strong desire sometimes to just pull the plug. But events of even the past few years – from the addition to our family of ‘Alexa’ & our personal robot gardener… to the ability to answer our front door from our office in the city…to unbelievable astrophysical marvels appearing before our eyes – these events show us that a world without technology at every conceivable level is not realistic for today’s primary-aged children. The latest statistics tell us that 85% of jobs that will be available in 2030 have not yet been invented ..and that’s purely because the technology that will drive them hasn’t yet been invented!
Technological advancement has become a by-word in everyday life – from work to health and household life to entertainment. The good news is that all of this experimentation with technology helps our children to learn, not just technical, but also creative and analytical skills, using coding. We know that children learn through playing, so we can tap into this knowledge and expand their brains. If we embrace the concept of quality screen time for our kids, then we can harness their interest in gaming and technology to get them not just playing, but coding – making and creating, whether it’s games, websites or simple programmes. Coding helps develop children’s problem-solving skills, empowering them by tapping into their natural curiosity and creativity, making sense of the world around them and learning how to make it work better…embodying STEM learning at it’s very heart.
Coding Crew bring the latest technologies to kids through fun and flexible after school clubs and holiday camps – in order to allow young primary school children to learn the basics and also to expand their knowledge. By using Scratch to build their own games and websites, through to robotic design with Raspberry Pi and Python, the children we teach at Coding Crew will develop unparalleled tech skills that will turbo-charge their own learning as they move through secondary school, as well as allowing them to start exploring what they enjoy and what they’re good at, which ultimately will help them to make more informed career choices later down the line.
Our coding clubs are open to both girls and boys of primary age. If you’d like to find out more and see some of our kids at work, follow our progress on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.