Secondary Junior Cycle

Junior Cycle Coding Short Course

The NCCA Junior Cycle Short Course in Coding: three strands, one Classroom-Based Assessment, and students building something in nearly every lesson.

  • Mapped to the NCCA curriculum
Pricing & ordering Try a sample lesson

The whole first lesson, as your class sees it. No sign-in needed.

On the board, and on their devices
A micro:bit number-guessing game
A penalty game in Scratch
Building a web page with blocks
Ranking a news feed

The same lesson opens on each student's own device, to follow in class and finish at home.

What your school gets

Everything a teacher needs to teach Junior Cycle Coding Short Course this year.

In class

  • 75 lessons, ready to teach Each one planned step by step, taught from the board with the same lesson open on each student's device. 11 interactive activities across the course.
  • Quizzes and assessments A short quiz with every lesson and 3 module assessments.
  • Progress and resultsWhat each student has completed, and how they did.
  • CertificatesFor portfolios, open days and reports home.
  • Try the first lesson: Welcome: Build Your First Scratch Program

On paper

  • Teacher Resource BookThe whole course laid out for the teacher, lesson by lesson, ready to print.
    The sample lesson's pages

The whole books come with the course, in each class's Resources.

The curriculum it covers

Every lesson is mapped to the specification. This course teaches 32 of the 32 outcomes for this class.

NCCA Junior Cycle Coding Short Course (2025)
Introducing computer science 9 of 9 outcomes
Let’s get connected 13 of 13 outcomes
Coding at the next level 10 of 10 outcomes
See every outcome
Curriculum Area
Outcomes
Introducing computer science
1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9
Let’s get connected
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13
Coding at the next level
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10

Tap any outcome to read it. The coloured ones are taught in this course. The curriculum does not include official reference codes for individual learning outcomes, so we have assigned a code scheme to make it easier to identify and track coverage.

The course, module by module

75 lessons and 3 assessments in 5 modules. The lesson marked Sample opens in full.

1 Strand 1: Introducing Computer Science 16 lessons and an assessment · about 11 hours
  1. Straight Into Scratch
  2. 1 Welcome: Build Your First Scratch Program Sample lesson Quiz
  3. 2 Variables and Input in Scratch Quiz
  4. 3 Loops in Scratch Quiz
  5. 4 Conditionals and Events in Scratch Quiz
  6. 5 Testing and Debugging in Scratch Quiz
  7. Design It, Then Build It
  8. 6 The Four Steps of Computational Thinking, by Building Quiz
  9. 7 Pseudo-code and Flow Charts: Plan It, Then Build It Quiz
  10. 8 Trace, Predict and Fix Quiz
  11. Make Games in Makecode Arcade
  12. 9 Plan and Build Your First Arcade Game, Part 1 Quiz
  13. 10 Enemies, Lives and Debugging, Part 2 Quiz
  14. 11 Score, Win and Share, Part 3 Quiz
  15. Make It Yours
  16. 12 Game Showcase: Play, Evaluate, Improve Quiz
  17. Computers and the World
  18. 13 Inside the Machine That Runs Your Game Quiz
  19. 14 Computing in the World Around Us Quiz
  20. 15 Ethics in Computing Quiz
  21. 16 Strand 1 Challenge Build Quiz
  22. Strand 1: Introducing computer science: end of strand check Assessment
2 Strand 2: Let's Get Connected 21 lessons and an assessment · about 14 hours
  1. The Internet and Data
  2. 17 How the Internet Moves Data Quiz
  3. 18 How Search Engines Find and Rank Pages Quiz
  4. 19 How Computers Store Data, Bits and Images Quiz
  5. 20 Investigating a Real-world Problem Quiz
  6. 21 Present and Justify Your Proposal Quiz
  7. Build a Website with HTML and CSS
  8. 22 Your First Web Page with HTML Quiz
  9. 23 Adding Images and Structure Quiz
  10. 24 Styling with CSS Quiz
  11. 25 Lay the Page Out Quiz
  12. 26 Build a Small Website Quiz
  13. 27 Write the HTML Yourself Quiz
  14. Coding Beyond the Screen with a Micro:bit
  15. 28 Sensing with a Micro:bit Quiz
  16. 29 Logging Data Over Time with a Micro:bit Quiz
  17. 30 Connecting Two Micro:bits with Radio Quiz
  18. AI in Coding
  19. 31 What AI Models Are, from Chatbots to Agents Quiz
  20. 32 Train Your Own Image Model Quiz
  21. 33 Code a Game That Uses Your Model Quiz
  22. 34 AI Agents, Software That Plans and Acts Quiz
  23. 35 Using AI Well, Judgement, Limits and Staying in Control Quiz
  24. Connected and Responsible
  25. 36 Ethics, Law and Safety Online Quiz
  26. 37 A Connected Cross-curricular Project Quiz
  27. Strand 2: Let's get connected: end of strand check Assessment
3 Strand 3: Coding at the Next Level 11 lessons and an assessment · about 8 hours
  1. From Blocks to Text, Python
  2. 38 Your First Python Program Quiz
  3. 39 Variables, Input and Output in Python Quiz
  4. 40 Conditionals and Loops in Python Quiz
  5. 41 Functions in Python Quiz
  6. 42 Lists and Working with Data in Python Quiz
  7. From Blocks to Text, Arcade Games in Code
  8. 43 From Blocks to Text in Makecode Arcade Quiz
  9. 44 Read, Document and Debug Game Code Quiz
  10. 45 Build a Number-guessing Game on the Micro:bit, Then Read It in Python Quiz
  11. Reading, Documenting and Analysing Code
  12. 46 Documenting Your Code Quiz
  13. 47 Reading and Analysing Unfamiliar Code Quiz
  14. 48 Strand 3 Challenge Build Quiz
  15. Strand 3: Coding at the next level: end of strand check Assessment
4 The CBA: Putting the Pieces Together 5 lessons · about 9 hours
  1. 49 Choosing Your CBA Approach Quiz
  2. 50 Planning and Starting Your CBA Quiz
  3. 51 Building and Testing: a Progress Check Quiz
  4. 52 Documenting and Packaging Quiz
  5. 53 Presenting and Reflecting Quiz
5 Project Studios (Optional Extension Sessions) 22 lessons · about 15 hours
  1. Scratch and Arcade Studio
  2. 54 Studio: Rocket Lander Quiz
  3. 55 Studio: Autonomous Car Quiz
  4. 56 Studio: Shark Swim Quiz
  5. 57 Studio: Red V Green V Blue Quiz
  6. 58 Studio: Galaxy Ghosts Quiz
  7. 59 Studio: Bat Battle Quiz
  8. 60 Studio: Donut Rush Quiz
  9. 61 Studio: Prison Break Quiz
  10. Micro:bit and AI Studio
  11. 62 Studio: Reaction Timer Quiz
  12. 63 Studio: Step Counter Quiz
  13. 64 Studio: Light Clapper Quiz
  14. 65 Studio: Higher or Lower Quiz
  15. 66 Studio: Voting System Quiz
  16. 67 Studio: Train a Pose Model Quiz
  17. 68 Studio: AI Pose Space Game Quiz
  18. Python and Web Studio
  19. 69 Studio: Rock, Paper, Scissors in Python Quiz
  20. 70 Studio: Digital Dice Roller Quiz
  21. 71 Studio: Reaction Time Tester in Python Quiz
  22. 72 Studio: Interactive Quiz Game for the Web Quiz
  23. 73 Studio: Weather Web App Quiz
  24. Web Page Studio
  25. 74 Studio: a Site for Something You Care About Quiz
  26. 75 Studio: Make Your Page Do Something Quiz

What students learn

A complete, spec-aligned way through the Junior Cycle Short Course in Coding, ready to teach as it stands or to borrow from. It carries 56 core lessons across the three strands and the CBA, about 42 hours of class time including the five CBA checkpoint guides, plus 22 optional project-studio sessions you can timetable after the matching strand for about 15 hours more. The remaining time in the NCCA's roughly 100-hour model is the project and independent work students do between lessons and during the CBA itself. Every code-along uses classroom-tested code from the platform's existing coding courses, so what students type is code that runs.

By the end of the course, students can

  1. Build and debug sequenced Scratch programs using loops, variables, conditionals and events, and apply a named debugging routine when something does not work.
  2. Plan before building with pseudo-code and flow charts, and explain how a computer stores and processes the data your program uses.
  3. Design and build a website with HTML and CSS, and explain how the internet moves data between machines.
  4. Program a BBC micro:bit to sense, log and share real-world data, including radio between two devices.
  5. Train and use a machine-learning model in your own program, and judge where AI should suggest rather than act.
  6. Read, document and debug unfamiliar code, and move from blocks to text in Python.
  7. Carry one piece of work through research, design, build, test and documentation for the Classroom-Based Assessment, and present it.

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