Find Out How Nearly 100 Schools Teach Coding for Half the Price of a Textbook

With coding and robotics becoming a core part of the syllabus, we, at SchoolAdvisor, have been keeping an eye out for companies that schools are using to bridge this gap.

We chatted to Matthew Henshall who discovered a way to teach coding to his niece and is the brain behind the program that is now used by thousands of learners in the country’s top schools. Within 6 months, 56 schools have chosen to use Code4Kids and we would love to share this solution with you. Read on to find out how this coding program can teach your students to code for half the price of a textbook.

Q1: How did Code4Kids start?

Code4Kids started almost by accident. It all started when I wanted to teach my 8-year-old niece how to code. After a year or two of teaching her, she told me their school computer teacher was leaving and that the school might cancel computer lessons. My ears perked. You can’t cancel computer lessons! This is probably one of the most important hours of the week.

Armed with a mission and only a vague plan, I scheduled a meeting with the headmistress. In the meeting, I pleaded for her to let our current tutoring company (SkillUp) take over their computer lessons for only one term. I confessed to her that I didn’t have much of a curriculum. I only had an idea of what the next couple of steps might look like but promised the students would be learning something and have fun while doing it. To my absolute astonishment, she said we could give it a go. 

Over the next three months, my team and I worked non-stop. We started designing our curriculums, building software to deliver it, hiring some brilliant teachers (who are still with us), and meeting with hundreds of schools, teachers, parents and industry experts. We wanted to make sure students were engaged, excited and growing while learning relevant content, real tools, and practicing real-world problem-solving.

Q2: What sets Code4Kids apart from other coding programs?  

Firstly, we focus on teachers and we offer them continuous support. They don’t need to have any coding background and they never need more than 10 minutes to prepare for a lesson. Secondly, we ensure students are learning to code using real programming languages. The same languages that engineers at Google, Youtube or Facebook use every day. They’re learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript – not just dragging and dropping or playing games. 

Some new courses include Robotics, Microsoft Excel and Engineering Drawing (to name a few). Moreover, the students aren’t just learning to code. The content they’re coding around is interleaved with their other school subjects. They’re learning about their country (see lesson 1 here), the solar system, famous women in history, sustainable energy, Cartesian coordinate systems, responsible behaviour on the internet, and much more. Although these students are 8 to 15 years old, they are learning things that typically only get taught at university – only in a far more fun, engaging, and collaborative way.

Q3: How does Code4Kids support teachers who don’t know how to code? 

The teacher is the most important person when it comes to an effective classroom environment for a learner. For that reason, Code4Kids is first and foremost teacher-focused. A teacher using the Code4Kids program needs zero coding background. After a single online training call, they only need 10 minutes before every lesson to watch a short video that covers everything they need to know. 

The entire course is also designed in such a way that a teacher should never give or even have all the answers. They are there to challenge and support the learners.

Q4: Which schools are currently using your program?

The schools using Code4Kids include: SACS, Camps Bay, Herschel, Rustenburg Girls, Herzlia, Rhenish Primary,Durban Girls’ College, King David Sandton, Pinehurst, Chelsea Drive Preparatory, Bergvliet Primary School, Ashton Ballito, West Riding Primary, St Mary’s Pretoria, The Grove, Epworth, Rondebosch Boys Primary School, Redhill, CBC Mount Edmund, Greenside Primary, Gonubie Primary, St Peter’s Boys School, Hatfield Christian School, Carlswald House Prep, Windhoek Afrikaans Privaatskool (Namibia), Canterbury Preparatory, and St Columba’s School.

Q5: How much does it cost? 

Our program costs less than half the price of a textbook. Pricing is between R110-R200 per student per year. 

Q6: What future plans does the company have?

We’re working with schools in countries around the world but are keenly looking at implementing it throughout Africa.

Every product decision we’re making looks at the impact it will have on the learner, teacher, parent and school. We’re constantly looking at what is happening around us, from new technologies and innovations to climate awareness and fake news. 

The goal of our lessons is for a student to leave the class seeing how important it is to be able to understand and manipulate computers and ultimately the world around them. 

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