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Our fantastic volunteers help bring Barefoot, computational thinking and computer science concepts to life by delivering free workshops to teachers in schools across the UK.
What does it mean to be a Barefoot volunteer?
Our volunteers are the backbone of Barefoot, providing teachers with face-to-face training on how to use the wealth of resources available to them. Operating in their local schools and beyond, volunteers deliver workshops introducing teachers to Barefoot resources and demystifying computational thinking and computer science concepts.
The 90 minute workshops are interactive. You’ll introduce the programme, run through a range of fun, unplugged Barefoot activities and show teachers how to access the resources on the website. Don’t worry, we provide all the materials you need and the Barefoot team will be there to support and guide you every step of the way. "It’s easily the best thing I’ve ever been involved with in terms of challenge, skills and feeling good." Ian Clapshaw, Barefoot Volunteer
Once you're registered as a volunteer, we’ll be in touch (usually within a few days) to invite you to an online preparation call. This will last about 90 minutes and will introduce you to the Barefoot programme, talk you through what it means to be a volunteer and run through the workshop. Once trained, we’ll contact you when a school in your area requests a workshop. Many volunteers also approach schools directly and we hugely encourage this, providing resources to make this as easy and stress-free as possible.
No. You don’t need a technical or computer science background. Our volunteers come from a wide range of backgrounds and everyone is welcome regardless of profession or experience.
Our workshops focus on activities that don’t need computers or digital devices to make them accessible to all schools and we will make sure you have all the information you need to deliver a Barefoot workshop brilliantly.
Running our workshops is a great personal and professional development opportunity for you, providing a route to up your presentation skills and build relationships in your local community whilst you give back. You can deliver workshops alone, or with a buddy as you develop your Barefoot confidence.
You will also be making a big difference, not just to the teachers you work with and enthuse about computing, but most importantly, the children. Teachers tell us that where they bring computational thinking alive for their pupils it has much wider benefit, including improved collaboration and problem solving skills and also positive impacts on numeracy and literacy. You can help make that happen.
Workshops generally take place in schools themselves, normally as teacher training sessions at the end of the school day.
A typical workshop will run from 3.30-5pm. Some might start earlier and some later, depending on the finish time at that particular school.
A small number of our workshops are run on teacher training days and we also have some secondary schools that offer to host workshops for their feeder primary schools.
In terms of number of workshops, it’s entirely up to you. We very much appreciate that you’re a volunteer and will be taking time out of your day to deliver workshops - so there’s no expectation. Whether it’s 2 or 20, we appreciate your support.
When a school asks for a workshop, we contact the volunteers registered in the local area, usually within 20 miles from the school. If you have any restrictions or are happy to travel further afield that is not a problem, we will work with you to make being a Barefoot Volunteer as rewarding and stress-free as possible.
Thank you for joining the Barefoot family.
Feel free to contact us, we are always happy to assist you with any questions you may have.