To celebrate Tech Week 2026, we packed up our Micro:bits and took The Code Lab on the road, visiting primary schools across Co Louth for a series of hands-on coding workshops.
Tech Week is all about showing young people what technology can do and what they can do with it. For us, that meant getting Micro:bits into pupils’ hands, getting them writing code, and letting them see their programs come to life on a real device in front of them.
First steps into coding
For some of the schools we visited, this was their pupils’ very first experience of coding. There’s nothing quite like the moment a child presses a button, sees an icon light up on the Micro:bit’s display, and realises they made that happen.
Those first workshops were about curiosity and confidence: learning that code is a set of instructions, that mistakes are part of the process, and that anyone can have a go.
Castletown Girls build a working traffic light system
At the other end of the scale, the 6th class at Castletown Girls showed us exactly how far young coders can go.
These pupils have been learning with The Code Lab’s online Schools Coding Programme for three years. During their Tech Week workshop, they took their Micro:bit skills to a whole new level, coding and building a working traffic light system.
A project like this pulls together everything they have learned: planning a sequence, controlling timing, and connecting code to physical components so the lights change in the right order. It’s real problem-solving, and the girls tackled it with confidence.
Time and tools make the difference
Seeing both ends of the journey in one week said it all. A one-off workshop sparks interest, but steady, structured learning over years is what builds real digital skills.
This is what happens when you give kids the time and tools to develop. The Castletown Girls didn’t arrive at a traffic light system overnight; they got there by learning a little more each year.
A huge thank you to every school that welcomed us during Tech Week 2026, and well done to all the pupils who took part.
Want to give your pupils the same opportunity? Find out more about the Schools Coding Programme on our Schools Coding Page.
