Has your tween or teen ever thought about creating a club that takes their interests in technology and turns them into fun activities they and their friends can all do together? If this sounds like your student, then you are in the right place. Today I'll share some ways to empower your child to start a programming club for everyone to enjoy at their middle or high school.
Discover How to Start a Coding Club
Starting a coding club can be pretty easy.
1. Figure out the club's goals
Figuring out the purpose of the club is important to keep members engaged and entice members to join. An interesting, impactful, and measurable goal will help sell your club to be approved. Here's how to plan out your goals:
Write your goals down
- Brainstorm ideas, such as learning a specific programming language like Python, creating a group project like a game, an app or website, or preparing for a coding competition.
- Consider which topics interest the members most, whether it's game development, robotics, design, preparing for AP Computer Science exams, or solving real-world problems.
- Write down multiple goals to help visualize what you would like to complete within your club.
- Writing them down will also remind you to stay motivated and follow through.
Create an action plan
- Deciding on the goals are easy, but putting them into action is the hardest part.
- An action plan should consist of the most important goals and the steps to follow it.
Action plan example (Creating a school website):
- Main Goal: Creating an updated school website.
- Secondary Goal: Learn JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc.
- Secondary Goal: Make it become the official school website.
- Step 1: Plan the look and feel of of the website.
- Step 3: Plan the content of the website.
- Step 4: Program the website. Work on learning the basics of what mark up languages are needed.
- Step 5: Pitch it to the Principal.
Create a timeline
- Creating a timeline helps to keep track of your progress.
- You should map your action plan to a timeline to keep track of milestones and deadlines.
- This timeline can be year long or semester long depending on how large the project is.
- Have each member take responsibility for a specific part of the project based on their strengths and interests
Take action
- Once you plan your timeline you can now take action.
- To keep things running smoothly make sure that every step taken leads to another step.
Step 2: Plan when to meet
Location: A meeting location is extremely important because you want to make sure it is accessible to everyone. Because this is a school based club you want to make sure you are meeting on school grounds. Not everyone will have access to the library by your house so you have to make sure that you do not stray far from the school (if at all). A great location for a club would be inside of a classroom, computer room or library. Make sure there’s access to computers and the internet.
Time: Because school is so busy you can't expect to be able to meet your club mates during school hours. You will have to choose dates and times when everyone is available. This will vary from club to club so ask the other members about their availability - perhaps using a free tool such as Google Forms to create a quick survey.
Meet regularly, whether it's once a week or bi-weekly, to keep momentum. Stick to your schedule so that everyone stays on track, and make sure meetings are welcoming and exciting to keep members engaged.
3. Get School-Approval
Find a teacher, school staff member, or parent who is supportive and knowledgeable about coding or technology. These mentors can help guide the club, provide resources, and act as a sponsor for official school recognition.
Often high schools and middle schools require clubs to go through a vetting process before it becomes an official school-approved club. This process may vary from school to school, but it usually involves filling out a form or relaying information to teachers or administrators.
Once you know how to get your club approved make sure you push home your goals. It does not hurt to be proactive! To do this you can create a presentation, a letter, or just talking to them directly. Showing that your club has a plan or goal in mind, is organized, and is responsible will impact whether the club is approved or not.
4. Spread The Word About Your Programming Club
A club is no fun without members! Here are some ideas to get your club out there.
- Create posters and put them around your school. And make an eye-catching logo that can be used to promote your club. For help with design, enroll your student in an award-winning live online Graphic Design Class. This class uses Canva, a powerful and trendy graphic design platform with a simple interface. You want to make sure your posters are interesting and colorful so graphic design would definitely be your best bet.
- Make a presentation about your club and ask to present or talk about it. You can present your ideas: At an after school program; at an assembly; over the loud speaker; via a recording and request to post it on the school's website.
- Host an official club event on school grounds to spread the word about your club. A perfect place to host this would to be at a fall open house. This way you can promote your club at the beginning of the school year. This would also bring in new members who have never went to your school before. You could also host a week long event at the school entrance before classes start. Here you can pass out flyers and spread the word about your club!
5. Coding club activities
A good activity to start with would be to complete the Congressional App Challenge! This challenge is hosted by the members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and encourages middle school and high school students to create and submit original apps that solve a district-specific problem. Students can use Python, JavaScript, or any other programming language to build their apps. The winning apps are displayed in the US Capitol Building, and are featured on the House of Representatives’ website.
Another activity idea is to submit a game development project to the NSF Game Maker Awards. With about a 10 billion dollar budget per year, NSF (National Science Foundation) is one of the largest government agencies supporting fundamental research at universities and research institutes in the US. NSF is hosting the NSF Game Maker Awards Competition to encourage students in grades K-12 to imagine life in the year 2100, and the role science and technology will play in shaping the future.
Another activity could be to enter a robotics competition. For example, Botball is a unique competition that integrates robotics with computer science and engineering, held by NASA. Open to students from middle school to high school, Botball challenges participants to design, build, and program autonomous robots to complete a specific task on a game board. The competition emphasizes coding skills, as all robots must operate without remote controls.
You could also hold “show and tell” sessions where members show off what they’ve coded. Or invite a guest speaker from the tech industry to inspire your group.
Computer science is an extremely broad subject with many specialties and possible areas of focus. Before starting a project, your club members might have to take certain courses on programming languages they do not know yet.
In a middle school coding club, most of your members are likely beginners with little to no prior coding experience, so your focus may be on introducing basic concepts, using visual languages such as Scratch, and keeping activities simple and fun.
In contrast, a high school coding club probably has students with more advanced knowledge or specific coding interests, such as Python, Java, or app development. So your high school club might want to tackle more complex projects, work on competitive programming, or even prepare for tech internships.
Enroll in free coding classes as a fun activity to do together:
- Python Intro: Python is a high-level coding language used by companies such as Netflix and Google, and it is also used for web development, game development, building apps, machine learning, and so much more. Studies have shown programming with Python to be one of the simplest and most popular coding languages when learning to code.
- Artificial Intelligence Intro: From R2-D2 in Star Wars to Transformers, artificial intelligence (AI) and robots have been fascinating for generations. Now AI is more pervasive than ever and is closer than ever to impacting many parts of our lives. With the latest developments in technology, AI and machine learning can now beat the highest ranking Go players, compose music, read medical images better than average doctors, and so much more.
- Roblox Coding Intro: Join this fun free intro class to get a taste of what creating Roblox games is like, and start learning Roblox coding! This class is designed for students who have not had any prior experience with Roblox Studio, the official tool for building Roblox games. We help students install and activate Roblox Studio, and go through a step-by-step tutorial to build an interactive Obby game with different shapes, colors, and materials!
- Advanced Scratch Intro: For club students who have no coding experience at all Scratch might be a good start. Studies have shown that middle school students who are new to coding do better by starting with blocked-based coding such as Scratch. This class introduces students to all of the key coding concepts, and prepares them for more advanced computer science courses.
Start a Coding Club Today
Have fun creating a school-approved coding club! You might also be interested in using free resume template for teens to land an after-school job.
To prepare for AP Computer Science exams offered by the College Board, join live online classes: AP CS Principles and AP CSA Java. All classes are led by an expert instructor and designed by professionals from Google, MIT, and Stanford.
Written by Create & Learn instructor Gabrielle Cindric. Gabrielle is a Computer Science student by day and a STEM instructor by night. In her free time, she enjoys playing video games and hanging out with her poodle Bailey and cat Asphalt.