Code Club is a global movement of free coding clubs where school-aged young people — called creators — develop the confidence to create with digital technologies. Code Clubs take place in schools and community venues like youth clubs, libraries, and maker spaces and are run by teachers, educators, and volunteers from all walks of life — known as mentors. These incredible mentors make Code Clubs possible and we are so grateful for their hard work.

About the 2025 survey report

This Code Club annual survey report presents key responses from 775 mentors gathered via surveys and feedback from partners.

This year, 7,494 Code Clubs have confirmed they have been active in the last two years, with clubs in 102 countries. We estimate 257,000 creators are involved in clubs and 43% of creators are female. As one UK Code Club mentor put it: “Girls who didn’t think it was for them now have confidence”.

Code Clubs have a positive impact on young creators

In 2024, an independent evaluation by the Durham University Evidence Centre for Education provided evidence of positive outcomes for young people attending Code Clubs. We are continuing to build on this evidence, with 96% of mentors responding to our surveys agreeing that creators have increased skills in computing and digital making, as well as increased confidence to engage with technology as a result of attending a Code Club. 

Here are a few of the examples mentors gave of the impact Code Club has on creators: 

• Confidence: “[Creators become] more confident using technology and making friends. Some really come out of their shell compared to when they started.” – Code Club mentor, UK  
• Skill development: “They come into the club with no coding skills (some barely know how to use a computer) and leave as competent, literate, coders.” – Code Club mentor, Canada
• Enjoyment: “One of our core principles is that coding should be fun… we give them creative ways to expand on the task. They learn to push themselves a bit beyond a task, and look for more things.” – Code Club mentor, the Netherlands  
• Social skills: “One great outcome has been the socialization that occurs. Kids in our club are definitely making friendships and improving their soft skills.” – Code Club mentor, USA  
• Continued participation: “It has increased their passion for tech and how to create new things to solve problems.” – Code Club mentor, Ghana

Increasing access to technology

Code Club also plays an important role in increasing access to technology for creators who would otherwise not have access. We work with partners across the world to run clubs in areas of educational disadvantage to ensure that Code Clubs are available to creators from all backgrounds to address this need.

In some regions, Code Club provides creators with their first significant encounter with digital making. A mentor in Kenya told us that Code Club ensured that creators in his area were not “left behind”. A Code Club mentor in Tunisia told us  “[…] access to coding is very limited, our club contributes to reducing this inequality”.

Next steps

Read the full report to dive deeper into the data and stories from the Code Club community!

We are an impact-focused organisation and are always looking to understand how we can improve and increase the impact we have on the lives of children and young people. Over the coming weeks we will be reviewing the feedback we have received to understand how we can support the Code Club community even better.

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Code Club is a network of free coding clubs where young people learn how to create with technology. Founded in the UK in 2012, it has grown to be a global movement that has already inspired more than 2 million young people to learn how to build their own apps, games, animations, websites, and so much more. 

We know that Code Club works. Independent evaluations have demonstrated that attending a Code Club helps young people develop their programming skills as well as wider life skills like confidence, resilience, and skills in problem-solving and communication. This impact is a result of the positive learning environment created by the teachers and volunteers that run Code Clubs, with young people enjoying the activities and developing skills independently and collaboratively — including young people who sometimes struggle in a formal classroom setting.

Just as important, we know that Code Clubs inspire young people from all backgrounds, including girls and young people from communities that are underrepresented in the technology sector. 

What’s changing and why 

While we are incredibly proud of the impact that Code Club has already achieved, we want to see many more young people benefiting, and that led us to set the ambitious goal to reach 10 million more young people over the next decade.

To help us figure out how to reach that ambition, we spent a lot of time this year listening to the community as well as engaging with parents, teachers, and young people who aren’t yet involved in Code Club. All of the changes we’ve made have been informed by those conversations and are designed to make it easier for educators and volunteers all over the world to set up and run Code Clubs.

The biggest change is that we are making Code Club a more flexible model that can be adapted to reflect your local context and culture to ensure that it is as meaningful as possible for the young people in your community. 

That means you can host a Code Club in a school or a community venue, like a library or makerspace; you can choose the age range and rhythm of meetings that make sense for your setting; and you can tailor the activities that you offer to the interests and skills of the young people you are serving. In order for the movement to be as inclusive as possible, you don’t even need to be called ‘Code Club’ to be an ‘Official Raspberry Pi Foundation Code Club’ and benefit from all the support we offer. 

To support this change, we have developed a Code Club Charter that we ask all club leaders and mentors to sign up to. This sets out the principles that are shared by all Code Clubs, along with the commitments that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is making about our support to you.

We have launched a new website that makes it easier for you to find the information you need to set up and run your Code Club, along with an updated and simplified club leader guide. In a few weeks time, we are launching a new online course with guidance on how to run a successful club, and we will be adding to our programme of online community calls, webinars, and training to support a growing community of club leaders and mentors.

One of the most important parts of our support for Code Clubs is the projects that help young people learn how to bring their ideas to life using a wide range of hardware and software. As they are created by experienced educators, based on research, rigorously tested, and translated into dozens of languages, you can have confidence that these projects lead to meaningful and lasting learning outcomes for the young people attending your club. Code Club projects enable young people to learn independently, meaning that mentors don’t need technical skills. 

What this means for CoderDojos 

Alongside Code Club, the Foundation supports CoderDojo, a network of coding clubs that started life in Cork, Ireland in 2011 and merged with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2017. 

In order to reduce duplication and make it easier for anyone to set up and run a coding club, we have decided to bring together the resources and support for all club leaders and mentors under one website, which is the new Code Club website.

There is no need for existing CoderDojos to change their name or anything about the way they operate. All registered CoderDojos will be able to manage their club in exactly the same way through the new website, and to access all of the support and resources that we offer to all coding clubs. New clubs will be able to register as CoderDojos.

The ethos, experiences, and lessons from the CoderDojo community have been a vital part of the development of the new Code Club. We have worked hard to make sure that all existing CoderDojos feel that their values are reflected in the Charter, and that the guidance and resources we offer address their circumstances. 

CoderDojos will very much remain part of this community, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation will continue to celebrate and learn from the amazing work of CoderDojos all over the world. 

Code Club in the age of artificial intelligence 

With AI already transforming so many parts of our lives, it’s not surprising that some people are starting to ask whether young people even need to learn to code anymore. 

We’ve got a lot to say on this subject — so watch this space — but the short version is that learning how to create with technology has never been more important. The way that humans give instructions to computers is changing, and Code Club provides a way for young people to experiment with new technologies like AI in a safe environment. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be launching new Code Club projects that support young people to learn about AI technologies, including generative AI, and we’ll be providing support for club leaders and mentors on the topic too. 

Thank you and get involved

I want to end by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has been part of the Code Club journey so far, and particularly to everyone who has worked so hard on this project over the past year — far too many people to name here, but you know who you are. I also want to thank all of the parents, teachers, mentors, and partners who have provided the feedback and ideas that have shaped these changes.

Code Club and CoderDojo were both founded in the early 2010s by individuals who wanted to give more young people the opportunity to be digital creators, not just consumers. From that first Dojo in Cork, Ireland, and the first Code Clubs in London, UK, we’ve built a global movement that has empowered millions of young people to engage confidently with a world that is being transformed by digital technologies.

It’s never been a better time to get involved with Code Club, so please take a look and get in touch if you need any help or support to get started.

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• Code Club is a global network of after-school coding clubs for learners aged 9 to 13, where educators and other volunteers help young people learn about coding and digital making
• CoderDojo is a worldwide network of free, open, and community-based programming clubs for young people aged 7 to 17, where they get the opportunity to learn how to create fantastic new things with technology

Every year, we send out a survey to volunteers at all the clubs we support. Today we share some highlights from the findings and what we’re planning next.

Why do we do an annual survey for clubs?

The simple answer is: to help make clubs even better for everyone involved! Educators and volunteers are doing a remarkable job in helping young people learn about computing and coding, so we want to know more about them, about how they run their clubs, and what impact the club sessions have for young people.

By knowing more about clubs — how frequently club leaders run them, what resources they use, what they would like more of — we can continue to improve the learning experience for educators, volunteers, and young people involved in our clubs.

This year in March we sent out our survey to all Code Clubs and CoderDojos around the world, and we heard back from almost 500. As always, the results were very positive, and they also gave us a lot of useful information on how we can continue to improve our support for clubs all over the world.

Who is involved in clubs?

Based on the survey, we estimate that at the time, the network of over 4200 Code Clubs and 700 CoderDojos was reaching almost 139,000 young people globally. The global community of clubs has continued to grow since then, with a now even larger network of volunteers supporting ever more young people.

According to the survey, the majority of young people attending clubs are aged between 8 and 13, but clubs host young people as young as 6 and as old as 18. It was great to hear about the participation of girls, and we’d love to see this rise even higher: respondents told us that 42% of their Code Club attendees and 30% of their CoderDojo attendees are female.

Respondents feel that attending club sessions improves young peoples’ interest and engagement in computing and programming, and increases their understanding of the usefulness of computing.

None of these young people would be able to attend clubs without the great work of teams of educators and volunteers. Based on the survey, we estimate that at the time of the survey, there were over 10,300 Code Club leaders and almost 4000 CoderDojo champions around the world. Many survey respondents said that they were motivated to start volunteering after attending a club themselves.

Community is at the heart of clubs and the clubs networks: over 80% of respondents said that belonging to a global community of clubs helps motivates them to volunteer at their own club.

What is the impact of clubs?

Clubs focus on a wide range of topics and programming languages. Scratch is overwhelmingly popular, with over 95% of respondents telling us that they used Scratch in club sessions in the previous year. Micro:bit projects and Python-based programming were also very popular. Club leaders told us that in future they would like to offer more activities around AI applications, as well as around games and mobile apps. 

Club leaders told us that being part of a Code Club or CoderDojo affects young people positively. Respondents feel that attending club sessions improves young peoples’ skills and interest in computing and programming, and increases their understanding of the usefulness of computing. Almost 90% of club leaders also agree that after attending a club, young people are interested in additional experiences of learning about computing and programming.

Attending also positively affects young people’s wider skills and attitudes, with club leaders stating that young people who attend improve their personal confidence, independence in learning, and creative thinking. 

Young people who attend improve their personal confidence, independence in learning, and creative thinking.

We were pleased to find out that most Code Club leaders, who run their sessions in schools, think that their clubs increase the visibility of computing within their school. Many also said that the attendees’ parents and guardians value their clubs as opportunities for their children.

What’s next?

We want to keep providing clubs with support to increase their positive impact on young people. Thanks to the survey results, we know to focus our work on providing training opportunities for club volunteers, as well as supporting club leaders to recruit volunteers and advertise their clubs to more young people.

You can read the survey report to dive deeper into our findings.

As we take an impact-focused approach to our work, we are currently partnering with Durham University on an evaluation of Code Clubs in UK schools. The evaluation will provide further insights for how we can best support people around the world to run clubs that provide welcoming spaces where all kids can learn to create with digital technologies.

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Tracy and Rebecca both have extensive experience in teaching computing, and they are passionate about inspiring young learners and broadening access to computing education. In their work here, they create resources and content for learners in coding clubs and young people at home.

How non-formal learning creates opportunities for computing education

UNESCO defines non-formal learning as “institutionalised, intentional, and planned… an addition, alternative, and/or complement to formal education within the process of life-long learning of individuals”. In terms of computing education, this kind of learning happens in after-school programmes or children’s homes as they engage with materials that have been carefully designed by education providers.

At the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we support two global networks of free, volunteer-led coding clubs where regular non-formal learning takes place: Code Club, teacher- and volunteer-led coding clubs for 9- to 13-year-olds taking place in schools in more than 160 countries; and CoderDojo, volunteer-led programming clubs for young people aged 7–17 taking place in community venues and offices in 100 countries. Through free learning resources and other support, we enable volunteers to run their club sessions, offering versatile opportunities and creative, inclusive spaces for young people to learn about computing outside of the school curriculum. Volunteers who run Code Clubs or CoderDojos report that participating in the club sessions positively impacts participants’ programming skills and confidence.

Rebecca and Tracy are part of the team here that writes the learning resources young people in Code Clubs and CoderDojos (and beyond) use to learn to code and create technology. 

Helping learners make things that matter to them

Rebecca started the seminar by describing how the team reviewed existing computing pedagogy research into non-formal learning, as well as large amounts of website visitor data and feedback from volunteers, to establish a new framework for designing and creating coding resources in the form of learning paths.

As Rebecca explained, non-formal learning paths should be designed to bridge the so-called ‘Turing tar-pit’: the gap between what learners want to do, and what they have the knowledge and resources to achieve.

To prevent learners from getting frustrated and ultimately losing interest in computing, learning paths need to:

• Be beginner-friendly
• Include scaffolding
• Support learners’ design skills
• Relate to things that matter to learners

When Rebecca and Tracy’s team create new learning paths, they first focus on the things that learners want to make. Then they work backwards to bridge the gap between learners’ big ideas and the knowledge and skills needed to create them. To do this, they use the 3…2…1…Make! framework they’ve developed.

Learning paths designed according to the framework are made up of three different types of project in a 3-2-1 structure:

• Three Explore projects to introduce creators to a set of skills and provide step-by-step instructions to help them develop initial confidence
• Two Design projects to allow creators to practise the skills they learned in the previous Explore projects, and to express themselves creatively while they grow in independence
• One Invent project where creators use their skills to meet a project brief for a particular audience

You can learn more about the framework in this blog post and this guide for adults who run sessions with young people based on the learning paths. And you can explore the learning paths yourself too.

Rebecca and Tracy’s team have created several new learning pathways based on the 3…2…1…Make! framework and received much positive feedback on them. They are now looking to develop more tools and libraries to support learners, to increase the accessibility of the paths, and also to conduct research into the impact of the framework. 

New literature review of non-formal computing education showcases its positive impact

In the second half of the seminar, Tracy shared what the research literature says about the impact of non-formal learning. She and researchers at the Foundation particularly wanted to find out what the research says about computing education for K–12 in non-formal settings. They systematically reviewed 421 papers, identifying 88 papers from the last seven years that related to empirical research on non-formal computing education for young learners. Based on these 88 papers, they summarised the state of the field in a literature review.

So far, most studies of non-formal computing education have looked at knowledge and skill development in computing, as well as affective factors such as interest and perception. The cognitive impact of non-formal education has been generally positive. The papers Tracy and the research reviewed suggested that regular learning opportunities, such as weekly Code Clubs, were beneficial for learners’ knowledge development, and that active teaching of problem solving skills can lead to learners’ independence.

Non-formal computing education also seems to be beneficial in terms of affective factors (although it is unclear yet whether the benefits remain long-term, since most existing research studies conducted have been short-term ones). For example, out-of-school programmes can lead to more positive perception and increased awareness of computing for learners, and also boost learners’ confidence and self-efficacy if they have had little prior experience of computing. The social aspects of participating in coding clubs should not be underestimated, as learners can develop a sense of belonging and support as they work with their peers and mentors.

The literature review showed that non-formal computing complements formal in-school education in many ways. Not only can Code Clubs and CoderDojos be accessible and equitable spaces for all young people, because the people who run them can tailor learning to the individuals. Coding clubs such as these succeed in making computing fun and engaging by enabling a community to form and allowing learners to make things that are meaningful to them.

What existing studies in non-formal computing aren’t telling us

Another thing the literature review made obvious is that there are big gaps in the existing understanding of non-formal computing education that need to be researched in more detail. For example, most of the studies the papers in the literature review described took place with female students in middle schools in the US.

That means the existing research tells us little about non-formal learning:

• In other geographic locations
• In other educational settings, such as primary schools or after-school programmes
• For a wider spectrum of learners

We would also love to see studies that hone in on:

• The long-term impact of non-formal learning
• Which specific factors contribute to positive outcomes
• Non-formal learning about aspects of computing beyond programming

3…2…1…research!

We’re excited to continue collaborating within the Foundation so that our researchers and our team creating non-formal learning content can investigate the impact of the 3…2…1…Make! framework.

This collaboration connects two of our long-term strategic goals: to engage millions of young people in learning about computing and how to create with digital technologies outside of school, and to deepen our understanding of how young people learn about computing and how to create with digital technologies, and to use that knowledge to increase the impact of our work and advance the field of computing education. Based on our research, we will iterate and improve the framework, in order to enable even more young people to realise their full potential through the power of computing and digital technologies. 

Join our seminar series on primary computing education

From January, you can join our new monthly seminar series on primary (K–5) teaching and learning. In this series, we’ll hear insights into how our youngest learners develop their computing knowledge, so whether you’re a volunteer in a coding club, a teacher, a researcher, or simply interested in the topic, we’d love to see you at one of these monthly online sessions.

The first seminar, on Tuesday 10 January at 5pm UK time, will feature researchers and educators Dr Katie Rich and Carla Strickland. They will share findings on how to teach children about variables, one of the most difficult aspects of computing for young learners. Sign up now, and we will send you notifications and joining links for each seminar session.

We look forward to seeing you soon, and to discussing with you how we can apply research results to better support all our learners.

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To find out what works in non-formal computing learning, we’ve conducted two research projects recently: a systematic literature review, and a set of two interventions that were applied and evaluated as part of our Gender Balance in Computing programme. In this blog, we outline these two research projects.

What is non-formal learning?

When you think of young people learning computing, do you think of schools, classrooms, and curricula? You’d be right that lots of computing education for young people takes place in classrooms as part of national curricula. However, a lot of learning can take place outside of formal schooling. When we talk about non-formal computing education, we mean structured or semi-structured learning environments such as clubs or community groups, often set up by volunteers. These may take place in a school, library, or community venue; but we’ve also heard of some of our communities running non-formal learning activities on buses, in fire stations, or at football grounds  — there really is no limit to where learning can happen.

It’s harder to assess the impact and effectiveness of non-formal computing activities than formal computing education: we have to think outside of the traditional measures such as grades and formal exams or assessments. Instead, we estimate outcomes according to measures such as level of participant engagement, attendance, attrition rates, and changes in participants’ attitudes towards computing. We have previously also piloted non-formal assessments such as quizzes and found that these were well-received by adult facilitators and children alike. 

Project 1: Researching the impact of non-formal computing education

Earlier this year, we conducted a systematic literature review into computing education for K–12 learners in non-formal settings. We identified 88 relevant research studies, which we read, compared, and synthesised to provide an overview of what is already known about the effectiveness of non-formal computing activities and to identify opportunities for further research. 

Our analysis looked for common themes within existing studies and suggested some benefits that non-formal learning offers, including: 

• Access to advanced and innovative topics
• Awareness about computing careers 
• The chance to personalise projects according to learner interests
• The opportunity for learners to progress at their own pace
• The chance for learners to develop a sense of community through peers and role models

We presented this research at an international computing education conference called ICER 2022, and you can read about it in our open-access paper in the ICER conference proceedings.

Project 2: Making links between non-formal learning and formal computing study skills 

One particularly interesting characteristic of non-formal learning is that it tends to attract a broader range of learners than formal computing lessons. For example, a 2019 survey found that about 40% of the young people who attend Code Clubs were female. This is a high percentage compared with the proportion of girls among the learners choosing Computer Science GCSE in England, which is currently around 20%. We believe this points to an opportunity to capitalise on girls’ interest in learning activities outside of the classroom, and we hope to use non-formal activities to encourage more girls to take an interest in formal computer science education.

As part of our Gender Balance in Computing research programme in England, we worked with Apps for Good and the Behavioual Insights Team (BIT) to run two interventions in school-based non-formal settings, for which we adapted non-formal resources and used behavioural science concepts to strengthen the links the resources make between non-formal learning and studying computing more formally. One intervention ran in secondary schools for learners aged 13–14 years old, who used an adapted Apps for Good course, and the other ran in primary school for learners aged 8–11 year olds, who took part in Code Clubs using adapted versions of our projects.

The interventions were evaluated independently by a separate team from BIT, based on data from surveys completed by learners before and after the interventions, and interviews with teachers and learners. This data was analysed by the independent team to explore the impact the interventions had on learners’ attitudes towards computing and intention to study the subject in the future. 

What did we learn from these research projects? 

Our literature review concluded that future research in this area would benefit from experimenting with a variety of approaches to designing, and measuring the impact of, computing activities in a non-formal setting. For example, this could include comparing the short-term and long-term impact of specific interventions, aiming to cater for different types of participants, and offering different types of learning experiences.

In these two Gender Balance in Computing interventions, there was limited statistical evidence of an improvement in participants’ attitude towards computing or in their stated intention to study computer programming in the future. The independent evaluators recommended that the learning content that was created for the interventions could be adapted further to make the link between non-formal and formal learning even more salient. On the other hand, as is often the case with research, some interesting themes — ones that we weren’t looking for — emerged from the data, including: 

• In the secondary school intervention, there was a small, positive change in girls’ attitudes toward computing when they saw that it was relevant to real-world problems
• In the primary school intervention, some teachers also reported an increased confidence to pursue computing among girls who had used the adapted Code Club resources, and they highlighted the importance of positive female role models in computing

In both projects, the findings suggest that it is beneficial for learners to participate in non-formal learning activities that link to real-world situations, and that this could be particularly beneficial for girls to help them see computing as a subject that is relevant to their own interests and goals. Another common theme in both projects is that non-formal learning activities play an important role in showing what a “computer person” looks like and who belongs in computing. This suggests there’s a need for a diverse range of volunteers to run non-formal computing activities, and that we should make sure that non-formal learning resources include representations of a diverse range of learners.

Undertaking these research projects has provided evidence that the work the Foundation does is on the right track and suggested opportunities to use these themes in our future non-formal work and resources. 

Find out more about our work on non-formal computing education

• Read the full evaluation reports from the non-formal learning interventions in primary schools and secondary schools 
• Find out more about the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s non-formal learning initiatives: Code Club, CoderDojo, the European Astro Pi  Challenge, and the Coolest Projects showcases
• Sign up for our free seminar on Tuesday 8 November to hear about further research work on non-formal learning from Dr Tracy Gardner and Rebecca Franks on our team

More information about research projects at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and our newly launched Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre can be found on our research pages and on the Research Centre’s website.

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