Accessing workers with the right digital skills is becoming increasingly important for employers – yet many of these skills are in short supply. For organisations to be able to access the IT talent they need in the future, it’s important that action is taken now, to ensure young people consider the benefits of this career path. By starting early and building deep partnerships with schools and educators, businesses can ensure young people are work-ready when they leave education.
One of the ways in which Experis is acting on this is through our partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. By providing education, resources and tools, the Foundation aims to help more people access computing and digital making, so they can understand and shape our increasingly digital world, solve the problems that matter to them, and be equipped for the jobs of the future.
In addition to hosting various company-wide fundraisers for Raspberry Pi, volunteers from Experis have harnessed their support and resources to establish a free Code Club for 9 to 11 year old students from Tyntesfield Primary School in Altrincham.
Joining a network of nearly 7,000 Code Clubs that are run across the UK, the six-week-long programme is aimed at introducing children to a range of software development languages, and inspiring the next generation to get excited about computing. Demand for the Experis Code Club was overwhelming, and resulted in two Code Clubs taking place simultaneously, introducing 32 children to coding languages such as Scratch, HTML and Python.
By the end of the six weeks, the children were well on their way to being proficient coders and had considerably grown in confidence. Alongside gaining a solid understanding of computer science concepts, they also improved their problem solving, communication and collaboration skills. Having received very positive feedback from both the children and the school, Experis is now looking at setting up Code Clubs in Edinburgh, London and Bristol, alongside a new Code Club in Altrincham.
Reflecting on the success of the Code Club, Siobhan Thompson, School Office Manager at Tyntesfield Primary School, said: “Our children loved having Experis in school teaching a Raspberry Pi Code Club at an after school club. The classes were oversubscribed and the attendance registers were 100% every week without fail. This was partly due to the interesting, fun content of the course, but also due to the lovely staff who were warm, engaging and energetic, and delivered the subject cheerfully and confidently. We even had one parent asking if the Code Club was being held anywhere else where her son could attend. This was one of our most popular clubs ever! Thank you so much to the Experis team – you would be welcome back anytime!”
65% of those in Gen Z will do jobs that do not exist yet. Preparing young people for the labour market means starting early, and providing tomorrow’s talent with opportunities to learn about the full range of careers ahead of them. We invite you to join Experis by setting up your own Code Club to support children in your local community.
To learn more, please visit codeclub.org
This article first appeared in the ninth edition of The Human Age Newspaper.
