BBC’s roving reporter Tom finds out how our students are helping school pupils to crack coding

A school code club run by University of Northampton students was featured on BBC Radio Northampton this week.

Roving BBC reporter, Tom Percival, visited Weston Favell Academy on Monday morning to find out more about the initiative, which has seen the University set up and run code clubs for Year 7 and 8 pupils in three Northampton schools.

You can listen to Tom’s reports, where he interviews students, pupils and Academy principal, Lorna Leventhal. There are four reports, starting at 1hr 24m, 1hr 55m, 2hr 23m and 2hr 51m.

Tom Percival with pupils from Weston Favell Academy, live on BBC Radio Northampton.

Tom Percival interviewing code clubbers from Weston Favell Academy.

The two University students running the Weston Favell Academy code club are first year Computing undergraduate, Nathan McGaughey, and Fine Art second year, Sandhya Ale.

Nathan said: “I did a lot of volunteering back home before I came to university, so it’s great to be able to carry that on here – it’s good fun, I enjoy it.

“I want to go into teaching computing after I graduate, so this was a great opportunity to help me achieve that goal.

“Being able to work with children and help them improve their skills is something I’ve always loved doing. Getting experience like this will be invaluable when I apply to work towards a teaching qualification, it shows that I have this interest and the necessary experience under my belt.”

Student Sandhya volunteering at the code club.

Student Nathan passes on some coding tips.

Academy pupils with students Nathan and Sandhya.

You can read more about our schools code club initiative, below.

Students and school pupils buddy up for coding club initiative