Mash Club – Not just for in school learning!

Mash Club is a pack of resources for running a digital technologies coding club at school or at home using Purple Mash tools. Currently, this includes an eight-week course on 'Coding' using 2Code and 'Blogging' using 2Blog. The club plans are designed to be self-led by the children. They click on the link to the session and are led through a tutorial on how to make their game or blog. With some schools needing to close again recently, it was great to hear from one parent on how he had used Mash Club with Year 2 students and engaged the parents too.

As a former primary school teacher, senior leader, LA advisor for ICT it’s been quite some time since I’ve really done any proper teaching! I’ve spent the last 10 years + promoting online learning, supporting schools with implementing technology approaches and platforms. Suddenly on the 20th March, like most parents, I was presented with a new challenge of homeschooling. I put my technology skills and knowledge of the market into play and as a school governor encouraged and supported my school to think about how technology could and should play a role in this new scenario. I led them gently along a route of using technology to enable keeping in touch and support the social and emotional aspects of not being in school. We also looked at ways for teachers to review and comment on home learning and provide that teacher support from afar.

We were a few weeks into our homeschooling routine when a technology news item sparked a thought – now would be a good time for children to explore coding, learn a new computing skill. I decided that maybe I should use my background and skills and actually do something to support my fellow parents. I launched an online coding Mash Club for Year 2! I surveyed parents and got a big enthusiastic response, so created 2 groups and committed to teaching two 1-hour sessions each week. 

The challenges – the children obviously have varying abilities and IT skills, although let’s be honest they’re all now experts in Teams and Zoom! In a ‘normal’ computing lesson you have the ability to see what’s going on, you can see their screens. Teaching 10 six-year olds via Teams, I can’t see their screens. It requires a lot more listening and concentration than they thought it might! Although some are very adept at using a separate device for the Teams meeting and turning that to show me their screen. 

But I’ve made use of the ability in Purple Mash for the teacher to see students work – so we’ve done a lot of ‘save your work and I’ll open it on my computer’ to enable me to see where they are up to and make suggestions. I’ve also been able to share my screen, with their work open, so I can use their work as an example to encourage others or to help guide them to correct problems.  It’s also been a great way for children and parents to work together and learn something new. Some of the children are definitely more confident than the parents. One comment was “I think Daddy found it harder than Mimi”

Initially I overestimated how much we might get done in an hour and very quickly realised that each Mash Club session is probably 2 or 3 online sessions – progress initially was slow as we all got to grips with the technology, concepts, coding language etc. But we’ve got quicker and adapted along the way. 

Children in our school are now returning to school although mostly part time. I surveyed parents whether it might be a good time to stop as children go back, unanimously they’ve all said no! “It’s the highlight of Samuel’s week”, “Charlie lists Mash Club as his top 3 favourite things in lock down”. We’ve had fun, it’s provided a bit of a focal point to the week, it’s enabled parents and children to spend an hour learning together. 

I accept I’ve got lots of technology skills and I enjoy the challenge of grappling with the technology. But hopefully, I’ve demonstrated that online teaching and learning for younger learners is possible, even with challenging topics such as coding.

Antony Moore

If you would like to do something similar and set up a Mash Club for home or school – it couldn’t be easier! We have included everything: a 'Getting started guide', 8 sessions, and a series of printable resources.  In each session of Mash Club, children will make a game and blog about their game or comment on others’ blog posts.

There is no general ‘Introduction to 2Code’ lesson as it is hoped that the instructions for making the games are detailed enough that children will learn this along the way and the idea is for a club atmosphere rather than a lesson/classroom one. If you feel that your child/children need a general introduction, then the 2Code User Guide can help you in this.

If there are topics or sessions that you would like to see included within Mash Club then please let us know by emailing community@2simple.com