Can you believe it, that’s half the year gone already!

In Term 3, we’ll be continuing to explore the main principles of computer programming. While the first two terms have focused on text-based outcomes, we’ll be shifting towards more graphical results using the Python Turtle module.

Classes are after school on either Tuesdays (Churchill Park School), Wednesdays (Glendowie School) or Thursdays (St Heliers Centre) and for students in Years 5-8.

If you’re interested in a place in Term 3 (or perhaps looking ahead to next year), please get in touch and we can send you further information.

Contact Greg Adams at info@codechampions.nz

Code Champions July 2021

Thanks to all our students for working so hard this term. You completed some awesome projects, including your Adventure Games and a Caesar Cipher.

We look forward to continuing your exploration of the coding with Python in Term 3.

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It was good to catch up with everyone again – and also welcome some new faces to our coding classes.

All groups are now up and running. Here’s to a fun term continuing our learning journey with Python.

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Our after-school coding classes start this week. We’re looking forward to catching up with everyone again.

Classes take place at Churchill Park School (Tuesdays), Glendowie School (Wednesdays) and St Heliers Community Centre (Thursdays).

For dates and times go to codechampions.nz/after-school

If you’re interested in joining our coding classes, please contact Greg Adams, info@codechampions.nz, for details and availability.

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Code Champions 2021

Great coding this week. All groups managed to finish their ‘Aliens’ game, then personalise it with some changes of their own.

There was also a ‘debugging’ test where our young coders had to find errors in a piece of code. They did fairly well, especially considering they have only been using Python for a few weeks.

Next week, we’ll be coding a multiple choice quiz. I’ve asked the class to prepare some questions to use. It’s not meant to be a huge job or too onerous and if they don’t have time to do it, no worries. Even if they just come up with some ideas for two or three questions, that would be great. It’ll mean less time next class thinking up questions and more time actually coding.

During the term, students have been receiving information sheets with examples of the code that we’ve been using. If you’d like a digital copy, or a reminder of Dropbox folder access, let us know at info@codechampions.nz

Next week, there’s no class at Chruchill Park School on Tuesday (as it’s a school holiday), but there are classes at Glendowie School (Wednesday 7 April) and St Heliers Community Centre (Thursday 8 April).

Enjoy Easter … and keep coding!

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Unfortunately, the move to a Level 3 lockdown means that we are unable to run coding classes this week (1-5 March).

Beyond that, we don’t know. We will let you know when we have further news.

It was great to get a first full week of coding under our belts.

Students got their first taste of the coding language Python. They did well and I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead.

If you’d like to practise at home, the Python program can be downloaded for free at python.org.

We explored simple in-built functions, like print(), bin() and round(), as well as user-defined functions. For example, we personalised the ‘Hello World!’ message.

We finished by looking at the code behind a a simple ‘guess the number’ game.

Learning computer coding is one of the best ways to prepare your child for the future. It enhances not only a knowledge of digital technology but also helps to develop important life skills, like confidence, focus, accuracy, problem solving, collaboration, and logical thinking.

Join our after-school classes

Code Champions’ courses help to develop computational thinking and understanding for Year 5 to 8 students. In 2021, we’ll focus on the Python coding language. We have three options for classes:

• Tuesdays at Churchill Park School;
• Wednesdays at Glendowie School; and
• Thursdays at the St Heliers Community Centre (100 St Heliers Bay Road).

Turn a passion into purpose

Whether it’s to support school studies or just for fun, our engaging and effective sessions will get your child on the front foot with this important digital skill.

For more information contact Greg Adams at info@codechampions.nz

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the holiday course at Saint Kentigern Boys’ School this week.

There was some awesome coding, tackling the programming principles behind webpages (html and CSS) and chatbots. Great job everyone!

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What a great start to the holiday course.

The first day concentrated on learning some of the basics of coding webpages. Our young coders were introduced to the HTML and CSS coding languages, and created their first pages.

They  worked on headers and footers on the page, adding headlines and images, as well as changing colours and font sizes. Plus, event after just a few hours, successfully ‘debugged’ (or fixed) incorrect code.

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