🍁Autumn 2022

It's National Coding Week 🎉

National Coding week was started in 2013 by Richard Rolfe, an inspiring former head teacher who wanted to help adults learn digital skills. This month, we celebrate his initiative with the hashtag #nationalcodingweek on our social channels. You will find our updates highlight a job that is related to coding, and use Code For Life to introduce coding skills to drivers and warehouse operatives at Ocado Group.

Richard Rolfe

"It struck me that whilst there was government investment in a new computer science curriculum for school children, there wasn’t enough being done to support adults."

“It struck me that whilst there was government investment in a new computer science curriculum for school children, there wasn’t enough being done to support adults… there wasn’t enough being done to support teacher training especially for non-specialists. Parents and governors needed training too… most people aren’t in education so I wondered what was being done to support and retrain those who had missed out on digital skills training or for older people who wanted to switch careers or become more cybersecure.” codingweek.org

Did you know?

Python is used in the whole data pipeline of the James Webb Space Telescope. Explore the universe with Webb.

Try it out/Can you solve this?

Test your skills with one of our Brain Teaser levels.

Brain Teaser

Under the Spotlight

Richard Watkins - Data Scientist

Richard Watkins

Richard is a Data Scientist working in Supply Chain at Ocado Technology. His team design forecasting algorithms – helping retailers offer their customers good levels of product availability, while minimising waste. As customers can add items to their orders until just a few hours before delivery, and fresh items can have a very short shelf life, this is a huge challenge.

"It's nice to be able to see your algorithms reducing food waste."

Help, it won't stop!

Have a look at the code below. Why does it create an infinite loop?

number = 1
while number < 10:
    print(number)
print("Finished!")

Answer: The loop is controlled by the value of number but number is never changed.

Therefore which is the correct solution from the examples below?

a

number = 1
while number < 10:
    print(number)
    number + 1
print("Finished!")

b

number = 1
while number < 10:
    print(number + 1)
print("Finished!")

c

number = 1
while number < 10:
    print(number)
    number = number +1
print("Finished!")

d

number = 1
while number < 10:
    print(number)
number = number +1
print("Finished!")

Celebrate National Coding week with Code for Life

Code for Life has been delivering support to teachers, parents and students around the world since 2014. This month we are releasing our first coding club packs. We have two different packs; the first is based on Primary learning and suitable for younger students, and our alternative club pack is ideal for introducing teenagers and adults to the principles of the Python language.

We want anyone to be able to set up a club and start delivering the courses. There are guides and resources for you to follow alongside a set of editable slides. Let us know how you get on with them and if you have any suggestions to improve them.

Club certificate

Solutions

Brain Teaser solution

Brain teaser solution

Python solution:

a) No, number is not being increased. You must assign number + 1 back to number

b) No, number is not being increased. You must assign number + 1 back to number. You can’t do this in a print statement

c) This is correct. 1 is being added to number and that value is being stored back in number

d) Here, the increment to number is not inside the loop. It must be indented to line up with the print()