How Can Parents Help Out?

Parents regularly ask us how can they help support their local Dojo. Below is a list of suggestions of ways parents and guardians of Dojo attendees can help encourage their youths to benefit most from the movement.

1. Bring Youths to a Dojo

Physically bringing your child or other young people to their local CoderDojo class is the most obvious way you can support them to develop a love of coding in a creative environment (You can find your nearest Dojo here). Part of this too is booking into Dojo events in advance so that a Dojo club is aware of the numbers of young people attending.

 

2. Help out at a Dojo Class

As many parents/guardians stay in the venue for the duration of the class, especially those with younger children, you might be interested at helping out during them. If you have some coding experience feel free to offer help to youths. If your area of expertise (eg. UI/UX design) isn’t currently being learned at your Dojo, you can offer to run a session on this area to the Dojo Champion(s) (those in charge of running the Dojo). You can also help with checking in attendees to the Dojo.

Not sure what to expect? Take our E-learning module which guides you through what you need to know to help mentor at a Dojo.

 

3.Make sure your child/other youths are on the Platform

When youths are on the CoderDojo community platform they can be awarded Digital Badges for the new programming skills they learn. Children under 13 need to be added onto a parent account, while those who are 13 and above can set up their own account on the platform. 13-17 year old ninjas can also use our Ninja Forums, to chat to other young people about their projects. The Ninja Forums is only accessible to youths (13-17) and moderators who have been vetted. Parents can chat to our adult community members on our general forum and discuss and ideas or questions they have.

 

4.Support girls and minorities

Encouraging inclusivity is something we strive for here at CoderDojo. Making Dojos free for all is one aspect of this. We also seek to support those who traditionally have been marginalised in the tech sector and encourage tech diversity. Part of this is encouraging those who tend to be quiet or shy in Dojos. Offering words of encouragement, acknowledging difficulties with coding projects, while supporting them to talk about or solve issues themselves, and not jumping in every time they reach an obstacle, are all important.

Role-models are an intrinsic part of ensuring representation in any industry. We have consistently found from our annual survey that the number of female attendees corresponds with the proportion of female mentors at a Dojo.

 

5. Help Translate resources & content

There are lots of other ways you can help the CoderDojo movement worldwide. You can help translate resources into another language, help translate video content (all our YouTube videos allow for subtitles) or our website. We currently have Dojos running in 66 countries, so if you have language skills you are willing to share, please do get in touch and help us offer free coding opportunities to even more kids worldwide!