Mentors

The people who actually run the sessions. Every mentor is DBS-checked and STEM-certified, and is trained to adapt to how a child learns rather than expecting the child to adapt to the session.

A mentor works with no more than six children at a time, which is less like teaching a class and more like six short conversations. The useful part is rarely showing a child the answer: it is asking the question that gets them to find it, then leaving them to it.

Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move up a level, or would rather stay where they are.

More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join, so a good deal of mentor training is about making an hour work for them: no pressure to have the camera on, chat instead of speaking, and stepping away without anything being made of it.

You can meet the mentor your child would actually have at a free taster session, and we do not ask for card details to book it.

The Code Zone runs 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.

A session is one hour a week in a group of no more than six, with the same DBS-checked, STEM-certified mentor every week, and children build their own games rather than working through a set course. The first session is a free taster and we do not ask for card details, so you can see whether it suits your child before deciding anything.

Most children start in Scratch or MakeCode and move to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. Levels move down as readily as up so the work always fits, and staying where you are is a perfectly good outcome.

Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move on, and it is why a child who has gone quiet for three weeks does not simply go unnoticed.

More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join.

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.