Junior Cycle Coding Short Course

Junior Cycle Coding Short Course

Curriculum Mapping
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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 51 core lessons across the three strands and the CBA, about 49 hours of class time including the five CBA checkpoint guides, plus 20 optional project-studio sessions you can timetable after the matching strand for about 17 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.
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The Internet and Data
How the Internet Moves Data
How Search Engines Find and Rank Pages
How Computers Store Data, Bits and Images
Investigating a Real-world Problem
Present and Justify Your Proposal
Build a Website with HTML and CSS
Your First Web Page with HTML
Adding Images and Structure
Styling with CSS
Build a Small Website
Coding Beyond the Screen with a Micro:bit
Sensing with a Micro:bit
Logging Data Over Time with a Micro:bit
Connecting Two Micro:bits with Radio
AI in Coding
What AI Models Are, from Chatbots to Agents
Train Your Own Image Model
Code a Game That Uses Your Model
AI Agents, Software That Plans and Acts
Using AI Well, Judgement, Limits and Staying in Control
Connected and Responsible
Ethics, Law and Safety Online
A Connected Cross-curricular Project
From Blocks to Text, Python
Your First Python Program
Variables, Input and Output in Python
Conditionals and Loops in Python
Functions in Python
Lists and Working with Data in Python
From Blocks to Text, Arcade Games in Code
From Blocks to Text in Makecode Arcade
Read, Document and Debug Game Code
Build a Number-guessing Game on the Micro:bit, Then Read It in Python
Reading, Documenting and Analysing Code
Documenting Your Code
Reading and Analysing Unfamiliar Code
Strand 3 Challenge Build
Choosing Your CBA Approach
Planning and Starting Your CBA
Building and Testing: a Progress Check
Documenting and Packaging
Presenting and Reflecting
Scratch and Arcade Studio
Studio: Rocket Lander
Studio: Autonomous Car
Studio: Shark Swim
Studio: Red V Green V Blue
Studio: Galaxy Ghosts
Studio: Bat Battle
Studio: Donut Rush
Studio: Prison Break
Micro:bit and AI Studio
Studio: Reaction Timer
Studio: Step Counter
Studio: Light Clapper
Studio: Higher or Lower
Studio: Voting System
Studio: Train a Pose Model
Studio: AI Pose Space Game
Python and Web Studio
Studio: Rock, Paper, Scissors in Python
Studio: Digital Dice Roller
Studio: Reaction Time Tester in Python
Studio: Interactive Quiz Game for the Web
Studio: Weather Web App

The Internet and Data
How the Internet Moves Data
How Search Engines Find and Rank Pages
How Computers Store Data, Bits and Images
Investigating a Real-world Problem
Present and Justify Your Proposal
Build a Website with HTML and CSS
Your First Web Page with HTML
Adding Images and Structure
Styling with CSS
Build a Small Website
Coding Beyond the Screen with a Micro:bit
Sensing with a Micro:bit
Logging Data Over Time with a Micro:bit
Connecting Two Micro:bits with Radio
AI in Coding
What AI Models Are, from Chatbots to Agents
Train Your Own Image Model
Code a Game That Uses Your Model
AI Agents, Software That Plans and Acts
Using AI Well, Judgement, Limits and Staying in Control
Connected and Responsible
Ethics, Law and Safety Online
A Connected Cross-curricular Project

From Blocks to Text, Python
Your First Python Program
Variables, Input and Output in Python
Conditionals and Loops in Python
Functions in Python
Lists and Working with Data in Python
From Blocks to Text, Arcade Games in Code
From Blocks to Text in Makecode Arcade
Read, Document and Debug Game Code
Build a Number-guessing Game on the Micro:bit, Then Read It in Python
Reading, Documenting and Analysing Code
Documenting Your Code
Reading and Analysing Unfamiliar Code
Strand 3 Challenge Build

Choosing Your CBA Approach
Planning and Starting Your CBA
Building and Testing: a Progress Check
Documenting and Packaging
Presenting and Reflecting

Scratch and Arcade Studio
Studio: Rocket Lander
Studio: Autonomous Car
Studio: Shark Swim
Studio: Red V Green V Blue
Studio: Galaxy Ghosts
Studio: Bat Battle
Studio: Donut Rush
Studio: Prison Break
Micro:bit and AI Studio
Studio: Reaction Timer
Studio: Step Counter
Studio: Light Clapper
Studio: Higher or Lower
Studio: Voting System
Studio: Train a Pose Model
Studio: AI Pose Space Game
Python and Web Studio
Studio: Rock, Paper, Scissors in Python
Studio: Digital Dice Roller
Studio: Reaction Time Tester in Python
Studio: Interactive Quiz Game for the Web
Studio: Weather Web App

Curriculum Mapping

See exactly how this course maps to official curriculum specifications

NCCA Junior Cycle Coding Short Course (2025)
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

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.

What Students Will Learn

Learning Goals

  1. Develop computational thinking through decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction and algorithms, applied to something being built.
  2. Work confidently in blocks and in text, and understand that both describe the same program.
  3. Use coding to solve a real problem and to make something worth showing.
  4. Understand the ethical, legal and safety questions that computing raises, including the use of AI.
  5. Take a project from an idea to a finished, documented piece of work.

Learning Outcomes

  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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