An MP Came Visiting

Back at the end of March I was lucky enough to be invited by Code Club to attend Parliament and be part of a drop in session for MPs. I was 1 of 5 volunteers who got to talk to MPs about what a great thing Code Club was and what the children were learning from it. Along with the volunteers being invited, the volunteers local MPs were also invited to find out what was being taught in their constituencies, for me this was Harriett Baldwin MP. I had a fantastic meeting with her in Portcullis House where she showed interest in the whole subject area and could see the benefits the children were getting. Before she left she asked if it would be possible to visit my Code Club back in Malvern and meet the children herself. After checking with the school that it was ok a visit was scheduled for Friday 16th May.

On the day of the visit there was much excitement within the club with everyone waiting for our guest to arrive, some having stories to recall about them or another family member meeting Harriett. She arrived with her Senior Parliamentary Assistant Edward Davies and was soon being introduced to everyone. I quickly showed her the progression the children had made during this academic year, showing her examples projects first from scratch, then HTML & CSS before finishing on the Python project that they were working on that week. She was amazed by the creativity shown by the children, all starting on the same project but including their own interpretations by the end. She was also pleased to see girls learning to coding too and was eager to encourage more girls to learn theses skills. She talked to everyone and really engaged with the children finding out what each of them was doing and how they were finding the club.

All too quickly we were at the end of the club. She thanked the children for showing her their club and they thanked her for visiting too. Before Harriett had even arrived she had already got 2 more Malvern schools interested in running a Code Club and she asked me what else was needed. I replied with Code Club providing all the required projects and support for free all the was needed was more me's! Other volunteers with IT backgrounds that are enthusiastic about wanting to teach Computational Thinking and coding to the next generation of children. So to help towards this she said that she would talk to other IT companies on the Malvern Hills Science Park (where she has her constituency office) and also other companies that she came in contact with. In the days after the visit a press release was written to publicize the visit and the benefits the children were get from the club. Hopefully the local press will pick this up and even more people will hear about Code Club.

Additional links
HarriettBaldwin.com - MP meets new generation of Malvern’s brilliant brains

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A Visit to Parliament!

All blogs have to start somewhere and mine starts here. Recently I was invited by Code Club to be part of a small group to visit Parliament, an honor in my eyes to be asked. On the 25th March I headed down to London and Portcullis house for a 2 hour drop in session where MPs could come along and find out more about Code Club and what the children are being taught in these after school clubs.

I arrived at my destination with plenty of time and was soon clear of the airport style security and armed police. The setting up of the room was frantic with laptops and flat panel TVs being unpacked and set-up. My job along with the other volunteers who were was to give the MPs a real hands on experience of the Scratch environment and the projects that we teach.

The whole event was being sponsored by Samsung and the shadow minister for employment, a Stephen Timms MP (someone who I wouldn't recognise, but more about that later). The order of things was that each MP would be greeted on arrival by representatives from Samsung and Code Code before being passed over to a volunteer. After we had finished being enthusiastic they would then be asked to nominate a local public venue where a Code Club could be run in their constituency. The reason for this was that Samsung were going to help set-up 5 clubs around the UK (from the suggestions provided) providing hardware and resources.

Well the 2 hours soon passed which during I spoke to at least 5 people at length. Each MP seemed interested in the subject and what we were trying to achieve and all providing me with a good level of questioning.

Out of these 2 MPs stuck in my mind. The first was a male MP who presented me with his business card on arrival. I gave him the full tour of Scratch and what we are doing and even challenged him to an game of desert race (of course I let him win) and he went away seeming happy with what he had learnt. Afterwards a Samsung representative asked me if I minded appearing press releases and I replied that I didn't (its good for my ego). It was only afterwards, when press releases appeared, that I realised that this was Stephen Timms MP!

The other MP was my local MP, Harriett Baldwin. All of the invited volunteers had their local MPs invited so that they could find out what was happening in their constituency. On top of this I had tweeted Harriett personally on the Sunday with a gentle reminder which she swiftly replied to confirming her attendance and the fact she was looking forward to finding out more.

On her arrival we recognised each other and I was soon showing her everything about Scratch, what we were teaching to the children and why what we were doing was so important for the children's futures. She could see the potential benefits and was interested in visiting my club and seeing the children at work herself. She hoped that her visit would help drum up some additional local interest too. After my time with her she moved on and nominated the Malvern Cube as a public venue that could run a Code Club in Malvern. It was real pleasure to meet Harriett.

So now I'm in discussion with Harrietts office arranging dates as to when she could visit. My school is on board too thinking it would be a great thing for the school. With Malvern containing such a hub of technology companies it would be great for more Malvern schools to have their own Code Clubs. This year holds some great possibilities for Malvern and Code Club.

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