Neurodiversity Celebration Week: How We Make Coding Accessible!
It’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week and here at The Code Zone we want to shine a light on why we think combining gaming and coding can be hugely beneficial for neurodivergent children.
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It’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week and here at The Code Zone we want to shine a light on why we think combining gaming and coding can be hugely beneficial for neurodivergent children.
According to research conducted by UKIE, the gaming industry in the UK has a higher percentage (18%) of neurodiverse people working within it than the general working-age population. This tells us that a career in game development is a popular choice for neurodiverse individuals which means that learning to code can be incredibly beneficial for young people who want to get into the industry.
This also means that it’s incredibly important to make sure that coding education is accessible to every child - so let’s take a look at how we aim to do this at The Code Zone!
We know that every child is different, which is why we champion a child-led approach. Members of our clubs are encouraged to personalise our weekly featured games based on their own interests, and we also provide a range of different coding ideas (known as Guided Hacks) that members can choose to add into their games.
Our brilliant STEM-Certified mentors are there to provide support and may encourage or suggest ideas, but it is ultimately up to our members to choose what they want to work on.
If you sign up for Game Dev Club, you’ll join a live online club with up to 5 other children with the same mentor every week.
Socialising online can be a great tool for neurodiverse children; according to Internet Matters, neurodivergent children may find it easier to build relationships and find community online rather than in real life which is why it’s so important to create engaging and safe online spaces for children.
At The Code Zone, all interactions are moderated by our mentors to make sure that the experience in our clubs is as safe as it is fun.
We know that flexibility is crucial, that’s why we encourage our members to engage with The Code Zone in the way that is most comfortable for them. As part of our taster sessions our mentors show new members how to turn their cameras on and off, how to use a text chat to ask questions, and how to turn down the volume of other members in the call.
What if you want to learn how to code, but you don’t like the idea of joining a video call? In that case you could sign up for Game Dev Academy! Members of the Academy are given all of the top tier support that our live club members receive, but instead of joining a call their mentor sends regular video messages throughout the week.
This means that you can work on the featured game at your own pace rather than joining a regularly scheduled club. If you need a helping hand, you can message your mentor and they’ll send you personalised video messages to help you out!
At The Code Zone, we’re committed to making sure that our clubs are fun, safe, and accessible; if you’re ready to start your coding journey you can try out a FREE taster session to find out if our clubs are right for you!
We’ll see you there!
Who wrote this
We run coding clubs for children aged 6 to 16, so the guides here are written by the mentors who teach them rather than by a marketing team. Live online clubs are open to children anywhere in the UK, and our in-person clubs run across Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
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, starting in Scratch or MakeCode and moving to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join.
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. Levels move down as readily as up. Nothing is forced, and staying put is a perfectly good outcome.
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, and in 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society. Over 1,000 children are enrolled.
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.
