Straight answers to the questions parents actually ask: what Scratch is for, when to move to Python, and what to do when other clubs have not worked out.
Written by our mentors
73 guides for parents · 161 posts from the clubs
If you've seen The Code Zone online or in person, you've probably heard about our Code Card. But what exactly is it? This blog is here to help parents understand what a Code Card is, what it includes, and how it helps our members learn to code.
Did you know coding teaches more than just how to make games? Even if your child isn’t aiming to be a game developer, joining a coding club builds valuable skills like computer confidence and clear communication, setting them up for future success!
Now that we've seen A Minecraft Movie we want to keep the fun going by exploring, building, and mining just like Steve! That's what Minecraft Mod Worlds is all about...
It’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week and here at The Code Zone we want to shine a light on why we think combining gaming and coding can be hugely beneficial for neurodivergent children.
What actually IS coding? We talk about it all the time, and it’s very important to make the world go around, but we get so caught up in doing code, we sometimes forget to explain what it even is! So put on your learning caps, and let’s figure it out together.
We’re always striving to get more girls involved with our clubs and making awesome games – we’ve got some amazing members of all genders, and they all deserve the same chance to learn code, show off their games, and of course earn some sweet XP points.
We have started using Virtual and Augmented Reality in our clubs, but there are a few things to be aware of.
We spoke to our wonderful mentors and here are their top 5 do's and don'ts of online safety for children.
As 2025 comes rolling in, with it has come an absolutely fantastic new aspect of the Code Zone that we’re thrilled to tell you all about; Minecraft Mod Worlds...
We have a plethora of different mentors, clubs and resources to help you get started on your coding journey. So in this blog, we wanted to give you a rundown of what to expect from our Game Dev Academy, our latest new way of learning to code for flexi-learners.
Why we believe it’s so important to be computer literate and what we’re doing to encourage computer literacy in our young coders!
So what does the future of coding and technology look like? At The Code Zone, we want to help children with their coding skills to become the innovators of the future!
Everything here is written by the mentors who run our coding clubs for children aged 6 to 16, which means it comes from people who spend their evenings watching children actually learn to code rather than from a marketing team.
The guides answer the questions parents send us. When a child is ready to move on from Scratch to Python. What to do when a coding-mad child has outgrown everything you can find for them. Whether coding clubs work for autistic and ADHD children, and what to ask any club before you pay for it. How to help with a bug when you cannot code yourself. None of them need you to be technical, and none of them assume you have already decided to join anything.
We try to be honest about the limits too. Several guides recommend platforms we do not teach and tools we do not sell, because a parent working out what comes next deserves the whole picture rather than the part that suits us. Where we do make the case for a mentor, it is because the thing no platform can do is notice that a child has gone quiet.
If you would rather see what a session is really like before reading advice about one, club news is the other half of the blog: game jams, Minecraft builds and weekly roundups written up by whoever ran them.
The Code Zone teaches children aged 6 to 16 to code by building their own games. Outside the UK that is the Game Dev Academy, which is self-paced: there is no fixed session time, so a child works at whatever hour suits them in any time zone.
A STEM-certified, background-checked mentor answers by text and video message during the week, so nobody is left on their own with it, and children build their own games rather than working through a set course. Creating an account is free and takes no card details, so you can see the platform before deciding anything.
Children start in Scratch, and the mentor sets harder work as soon as they are ready for it. Levels move down as readily as up so the work always fits, and staying where you are is a perfectly good outcome.
Mentors write a note on every child, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move on, and it is why a child who has gone quiet for three weeks does not simply go unnoticed.
More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join.
In 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society, the UK's leading autism charity, and in 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers, scored by five independent judges on safeguarding, inclusivity and community impact.
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