Virtual After School Coding Club Launches as Pandemic Wipes Out Children’s Activities
The Code Zone has launched a virtual coding club in response to Covid-19 safety measures wiping out children’s after school activities.
Tech start-up, The Code Zone, is transforming their in-person after school clubs into a virtual learning platform to continue teaching and encouraging young learners despite the global pandemic.
In 2019, founders of tech company noticed a gap in the curriculum for computer coding and created 11 clubs across Cambridgeshire, Essex and Suffolk. 10 new club locations were due to launch when the nationwide lockdown began, meaning the company needed to adapt and pivot their business model to reach its customers.
Co-Founder and Operations Lead of The Code Zone, Ashley Payne, said, “Whilst we had always planned for an online format, the pandemic accelerated the concept. It made strong sense to replicate The Code Zone online, given the huge surge in home learning platforms and applications because of the Covid-19 situation.”
Payne continued, “The After-School Hangout seemed like the natural next addition for our online platform given the lack of social opportunities available to children under current circumstances. Children will gain a real sense of achievement from the club’s challenges. It’s so important that we don’t let our children get left behind and we give them something to look forward to.”
The company believe children should remain connected and curious despite the dwindling activities available and aim to build a community of young creatives in a safe and fascinating outlet.
The after-school coding club is hosted online between the times of 3pm and 7pm Monday to Friday for children aged 6-14. Weekly challenges are set, including coding your own arcade game, and all communal chat areas monitored by The Code Zone team.
The launch was covered by UK News Group.
About The Code Zone
We run coding clubs for children aged 6 to 16, online across the UK and in person across Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Over 1,000 children are enrolled.
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.
We were the global winner of the Xero Beautiful Business Fund for Upskilling For The Future in 2024, and won the STEAM Educator category at the 2026 Full STEAM Ahead Awards. In 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society.
A live club is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same DBS-checked, STEM-certified mentor every week. 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. Our awards programme is STEM accredited.
More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join, which is part of why the Autism Inclusion Award matters to us more than the others. Children can keep the camera off, type instead of speaking, and take a break without it disrupting anyone.
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.
