Introducing The Code Zone's new Mentor team!
It's April, it's time to find a new way to build the mentor team! Previous attempts with AI have not gone well...can man's best friend help?
Did you catch our announcement on Facebook this morning?
We've got exciting news! Our mentor team is growing! With infectious enthusiasm, boundless energy and a hunger for unlimited treats - introducing, our pet mentor team. Tom has been busy training them and they will be joining you in clubs from today - April 1st!
Who would be your favourite pet mentor? Send us photos of your pets learning to code and building games - could they be our next online coding club mentor?
Ok ok...maybe it's not 100% true (it is April 1st after all!), but if you ask our mentors too they will jump at the chance to show you their pets - they are usually nearby vying for attention.
And we are actually busy training new mentors. They are human of course, but they also have infectious enthusiasm, boundless energey and definitely a hunger for unlimited treats - Veronica, Alex and Anoutia have recently joined our mentor team and you'll meet them in clubs very soon.
If you like to learn more about our online code clubs, head here to find out more about Game Dev Club!
About The Code Zone
We run coding clubs for children aged 6 to 16. Live online clubs are open to children anywhere in the UK, and our in-person clubs run across Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Over 1,000 children are enrolled.
A live club is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same DBS-checked, STEM-certified mentor.
Children build their own games rather than working through a set course, and levels move down as readily as up so the work always fits. More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join.
Most children start in Scratch or MakeCode and move to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. Mentors write a note on every child after every session, so we know when somebody is ready to move up or would rather stay put. Nothing is forced.
In 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society, and in 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers, scored by five independent judges on safeguarding, inclusivity and community impact. Every mentor is DBS-checked and STEM-certified.
More like this
The blog is in two halves. Guides are the evergreen explainers written by the mentors who teach the clubs, covering the questions parents actually ask: what comes after Scratch, how to support a coding-mad child when you cannot code yourself, and what works for autistic and ADHD children.
Club news is the other half, and it is where posts like this one live: game jams, Minecraft builds and weekly roundups, written up by whoever ran the session. Neither is marketing. If you want to know what an hour actually looks like before you book anything, club news is the more honest read of the two.
The first session is a free taster and we do not ask for card details. Book a free taster session, see what it costs, or read about support for neurodivergent children.
