🎄December 2023

Welcome to the Code for Life Newsletter

Seasons greetings!

What a year it has been for Code for Life. Our small, dedicated team, housed amongst the roboticists in Ocado Technology, has remained resilient in a tough year. We have continued to push and drive our platform forward, building new features, new teaching resources, and new relationships with companies such as Barclays, CS in Schools, BCS and Barefoot Computing. We are excited to see what the new year brings, and are itching to show you our new features and lessons we are putting together for you.

Our newsletter this quarter is celebrating this time of year and we have packed this stocking of an issue full of fun facts and puzzles to keep you and your students busy in the run up to Christmas.

Alan Turing (right) at the console of the Ferranti Mark I. Photo courtesy of the University of Manchester School of Computer Science

"Listeners to BBC radio heard an utterly new sound in 1951 — a computer playing music"

Jack Copeland and Jason Long, The British Library

Among its Christmas fare the BBC broadcast two melodies that, although instantly recognisable, sounded like nothing else on earth. They were Jingle Bells and Good King Wenceslas, played by the mammoth Ferranti Mark I computer that stood in Alan Turing's Computing Machine Laboratory, in Manchester.

According to Ferranti’s marketing supremo, Vivian Bowden, it was "the most expensive and most elaborate method of playing a tune that has ever been devised". Bowden may have kicked himself for predicting, at this seminal moment, that computer-generated music had no future." Read more.

Did you know?

Now we hear computer generated music all the time, can your students identify any of their favourite Christmas songs that have been created with help from a computer?

What's wrong with this solution? Uh oh! Phil has been scrambling up the solutions again. Not sure he will be getting a visit from Santa this year! Can you help Santa get the blocks in the correct order so he can deliver to the houses on time? Try here.

Have you used our new While Loop section yet?

	Last newsletter we showed you that we released a new section based on While Loops. Have you had a try yet? Have a look here and let us know your feedback.

Under the Spotlight

Claire Ainscough, Chief People Officer, Ocado Group

"My four years here have been a whirlwind - like all tech organisations, no day is ever the same. My role is responsible for Ocado’s employees- basically ensuring this is an amazing place to work regardless of your background.

The best thing about my job is when I see people grow and develop - here you can do this through your role, through professional courses and by volunteering internally. One great example of this is through Code for Life which benefits the skills and wellbeing of our volunteers, and inspires people to a future career in tech. This combination of learning, wellbeing, diversity and inspiring young people is one of the best ways Ocado builds a stronger organisation for the future."

Claire Ainscough - Chief People Officer, Ocado Group

"The best thing about my job is when I see people grow and develop... One great example of this is through Code for Life which benefits the skills and wellbeing of our volunteers, and inspires people to a future career in tech."

"Prior to Ocado I held senior HR roles with Expedia (online travel) and Premier Farnell (B2B distributor) and before that I worked at a start-up - all were great places where I learned loads. I was lucky enough to live in Chicago for five years which was a fantastic work and life experience. Chicago definitely gave me the travel bug and I love to take trips for holidays or work."

New Python lessons

We are very excited about this. We have been busy exploring the open source IDE from Raspberry Pi and we think it's great!

We have a set of lessons ready to test in your classrooms and homes. If you'd like early access, drop us a line and we can share a link with you.

Intro to Coding for Primary Schools

A while ago we mentioned we were partnering up with our Australian friends, CS in Schools. Well, we have a Beta set of lessons for you to test here in the UK too!

The course is free, and CS in Schools also offers free teacher support and teacher Professional Development.

Here is what the CEO, Megan Woff says:

"This is the perfect introduction to grade 5 or 6 primary school students to algorithms and block coding! The course contains a full classroom-in-a-box for any teacher to be able to introduce fun & effective coding skills over 6 lessons.

The course includes full lesson slides, classroom based activities, worksheets, assignment, teacher notes & support and of course Rapid Router. The course is mapped to the Australian upper primary school curriculum (ages 8-12) and can be adapted for UK key stage 3."

Let us know what you think of our newsletter by getting in touch and sharing your thoughts and ideas.