Show and tell

Spending a few minutes at the end of a session on a show-and-tell is great for sharing good ideas amongst your learners and also for helping them feel like a team if they have been working individually.

At the end of the club session, we spend a few minutes sharing what we have achieved by linking student laptops to the interactive whiteboard. It's great to see how people have completed the same project in different ways. — Simon Hall, Code Club leader, Little London Primary School, Leeds

Before you try it the first time, have a think about how it might work. Are you going to give every learner the chance to show their progress or only a few? And if you have only a few do a show-and-tell, will they be volunteers or will you choose them?

Here are a few ways to run a show-and-tell:

Every learner takes part

It will take a little time to show and tell with every member of your club, so you could schedule this every six weeks for example.

Choose some star coders

Alternatively, you could choose two or three 'star coders' from the group to show their progress. Remember that these don't necessarily have to be the club members who have impressive outcomes — they could also be those who've solved problems well or who tried to create something innovative, even if it didn't succeed.

We give out a ‘star coder’ award at the end of each session. This is for a child who has gone beyond what they’ve previously achieved or who really wowed us with the way they have worked. You could give out stickers, but we give out 3D-printed keyrings, which a local makerspace helps us produce. I make sure to sometimes give a ‘star coder’ award to a child who tried something ambitious and didn’t quite get it to work or who found that the approach they had taken wasn’t possible. There’s often much more learning in these situations than in the ones where everything just works. — Tracy Gardner, Code Club leader, Oliver's Battery Primary School, Winchester

Ask for volunteers

If you'd prefer to ask for volunteers for a show-and-tell, then you can do so — just make sure you don't get the same three keen coders each time!

However you decide to run the show-and-tell, make sure you keep the atmosphere positive. Think of one positive comment about each project you see, and make sure that every learner who shows off what they've done gets a round of applause.