After-school coding clubs · ages 7 to 12
Twelve weeks. One finished game. Their name on it.
Byte Cubs runs after-school coding clubs of eight kids in real rooms with real people. Every term ends with a game they built themselves, playable on any phone, with the code theirs to keep forever.
£15 a session · second sibling half price
Made last term, by kids this age
AYAAN, 9 · CUBS
Bin Goblin
A goblin who eats litter and grows one pixel per crisp packet. Boss fight at the recycling centre.
MARNIE, 11 · CODERS
Toast Panic
Two players, one phone, one grill. Butter it before it burns. Her brother has never won.
OLLIE, 12 · CODERS
Cave of Nine Doors
Real JavaScript, written from scratch. Eight of the doors lie to you. He tested it on his nan.
What happens in a term
Weeks 1 to 3 they draw it. Weeks 4 to 9 they build it and it breaks constantly. Week 10 they play each other's. Week 12 the grown-ups come and get beaten at it.
Weeks 1 to 3
They draw it
Paper first, no screens. Characters, levels, one rule the game is about. The sketch goes on the wall and stays there.
Weeks 4 to 9
They build it
And it breaks constantly. That is the lesson. Six weeks of fixing your own mess is the whole course, secretly.
Weeks 10 and 11
They swap
Everyone plays everyone else's. Kids are brutal testers and fix more bugs in one hour than we could name in three.
Week 12
Showcase night
The grown-ups come and get beaten at it. Everyone leaves with a link, the code, and a game with their name on the title screen.
Two age bands, two very different rooms
We split by what they can hold in their head, not by school year. A kid can move up mid-term if they are ready, and nobody makes a thing of it.
CUBS · 7 TO 9
Block-based, and a platformer with a boss they design
Drag-and-drop blocks, so nothing is lost to a missing semicolon. They design the boss first — its weakness, its stupid name — and build the game backwards from it. Reading level does not hold anyone back here.
CODERS · 10 TO 12
Real JavaScript, and a two-player game that works on a phone
Typed code, real files, a real editor. Two players on one phone means they have to think about somebody else using their thing — which is most of software, learned at ten.
Meet the club leaders
Every club leader is DBS-checked, first-aid trained, and has actually shipped software. Ratio is never worse than one adult to eight kids.
DBS-checked
First-aid trained
1 adult : 8 kids
Priya Raman
Lead, Cubs
Ran a primary computing suite for nine years before this. Can settle a room of eight in about four seconds.
SHIPPED: NHS BOOKING TOOLS, 2016–2021
Dan Okafor
Lead, Coders
Games programmer who got tired of crunch and would rather teach twelve-year-olds to name their variables properly.
SHIPPED: TWO CONSOLE TITLES, ONE HE ADMITS TO
Cat Meredith
Roaming leader, all venues
Covers whichever room needs a second adult, which is every room. Keeps the plasters and the spare chargers.
SHIPPED: ACCESSIBILITY TOOLING, STILL MAINTAINS IT
Term dates, times and venues
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4pm to 5:30pm
In three venues. £15 a session, paid by the term. Second sibling half price.
Autumn term: 9 September to 27 November
Spring term: 13 January to 2 April
Twelve sessions a term, £180, invoiced in one go. Half-term off. Join late and we pro-rata it — nobody pays for a week they missed.
Ashfield Community Hall
Tuesdays · 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Back room with the good tables. Parking behind the library, five minutes from Ashfield Primary gates.
3 spaces left this term
St Anne's Scout Hut
Tuesdays and Thursdays · 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Both age bands run here, in separate rooms. Glass panel in the door if you want to watch.
6 spaces left this term
Northgate Makerspace
Thursdays · 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Coders only, upstairs. Big screens, proper keyboards, and a soldering bench they are not allowed near.
1 space left this term
What parents ask before they book
These four, nearly every time, usually in this order. Anything else, ring us — a person answers.
Do they need a laptop?
No. We supply every machine, charged and set up, and they never carry anything home but the code.
Do they need to be good at maths?
No. Not once in twelve weeks does it come down to maths. It comes down to whether they will try the thing again after it breaks.
Can they join late and catch up?
Yes. We have done it fourteen times. They pair with someone for a session and by the second week you cannot tell who started when.
What if they hate it?
Then they stop and we refund the rest of the term, no conversation required. It has happened twice and both times we deserved it.
THE TRIAL
First session is free, and you can watch through the glass
If you want to. Most parents leave after ten minutes. There is a café two doors down at St Anne's and we will text you if anything at all goes sideways.
Book a free trial session
Tell us the venue and the age, and we will hold a place for the next Tuesday or Thursday. £15 a session after that, paid by the term. Second sibling half price, applied automatically — you never have to ask for it.
One kid £180 a term · two kids £270
Twelve sessions each, one invoice, no joining fee and no kit to buy.
Or ring 0161 496 0118 — Priya or Cat picks up between 9am and 6pm.