Professionals working in the youth sector have been gaining essential new creative skills thanks to the UK’s largest coding school.

School of Coding, based in Wolverhampton, has been supporting people in developing skills in Coding, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, which it believes will be crucial to the digital transformation in the future.

Through the Cair 4 Youth programme, the school has been helping upskill youth workers in fun and game-inspired, non-formal educational methods in these areas.

School of Coding hosted a conference at its headquarters recently where, along with its partners, provided an insight into the programme and the importance of e-learning for youth workers and young people.

Its partners include Robootika, Shropshire Youth Support Trust (SYST), Cij Sud Coopérative Jeunes and Elderberry AB.

Manny Athwal, founder of School of Coding, said: “In today’s digital age, coding is an important skill for youth workers to learn as they can create educational or interactive activities that can help engage and inspire youth in their future career path.

“Unfortunately, our youth population is a particularly vulnerable group that lacks adaptation to emerging technologies.

“Very little has been done to empower young people or critically engage the discourse surrounding the next generation of technologies that have a significant potential to shape their lives for better or worse.

“By encouraging various stakeholders, including policymakers, youth workers, parents, and caregivers, we can reach our primary objective of learning how we can empower young people and encourage them to interact with AI-based technologies.

“We can address the key challenges and concerns by pushing learning, creative expression, and well-being. The objective is skills development for youth workers and subsequently upskilling young people through informal methods.”

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme and is one of five School of Coding is currently involved with in Europe. And an additional four more projects through its SOC Blended Learning branch, based in Ireland.

School of Coding teaches computer science, coding and digital skills to children and adults across the UK and Europe, online and at its education centres.

Working in partnership with three major universities and over 150 primary and secondary schools in the UK, it also delivers after school clubs and coding workshops.

Its mission is to engage, inspire and create tech leaders of tomorrow from a young age.