By Staff Reporter

Primary and secondary school children across Ireland are encouraged to ‘get scratching’ as part of a national coding contest now in its seventh year. 

The National Scratch Coding Competition, hosted by the Irish Computer Society, is open to young coders from junior infants all the way up to sixth year.

Participants craft their digital creations in Scratch, a visual programming language that encourages children to develop essential coding skills through fun and interactive learning.

Scratch is open to individual students, classes and groups in primary and secondary school as well as after-school coding clubs such as Coderdojo. This year there is also a pilot special needs category.

Schools all over Ireland are now invited to register and take part in this year’s competition by Friday 17 February. The 2017 Scratch national final will take place during Tech Week 2017 from 23-29 April.

Visit www.scratch.ie for further information.