CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has teamed up with Impact Gamers to deliver a game making course to Bowling Park Primary School students in Bradford.

Bradford-based Impact Gamers is an award-winning community interest company that uses game making to engage young people and build digital skills, while raising self-esteem and aspiration. Through workshops, events and after school groups it provides opportunities for young people to develop their own games and apps in a supportive and safe environment.

With the support of CityFibre, Impact Gamers has launched Level Up!, a new six-week game making course being piloted at Bowling Park Primary School. The course, which kicked off during national “Get Online Week”, encourages pupils to express their emotions whilst also developing their computational thinking and digital literacy. Students are encouraged to use their creativity to understand and change the world.

CityFibre, which is currently investing £4bn in building future-proof full fibre networks across the UK, was involved in a series of events and initiatives throughout ‘Get Online Week’, with the aim of helping more people get the most from their internet connection and supporting digital inclusion.

Kim Johnston, Regional Partnership Director, CityFibre, said: “We’re really pleased to be supporting the brilliant work of Impact Gamers and helping young people learn the skills they need to succeed in a digital world. With the construction of our full fibre network well underway across the city, there’s going to be huge digital opportunities in Bradford and it’s great to see young people get excited about digital skills.”

Leigh Crowther, Assistant Head, Bowling Park Primary School, said: “As with all schools, at Bowling Park we work hard to help prepare our children for the future in an ever-changing world. There are children in primary schools today who will be the programmers, software designers, researchers and computer scientists of the future so we are really grateful to CityFibre and Impact Gamers for providing our children with further opportunities to develop their digital skills on such an inspiring, fun and creative project.”

Adam Syrop, Director, Impact Gamers, said: “We are passionate about investing in young people and game making is such a great way to engage them. This new course is a culmination of our five years of experience in both youth work and coding. We are so excited to be partnering with CityFibre to help build emotional literacy and resilience while making something really fun to play with the students.”

CityFibre is investing £75m in Bradford to lay a new network that uses the best available technology – full fibre – to give nearly every home and business the digital foundation they need to thrive today, tomorrow and in decades to come.

Those interested in full fibre broadband can pre-register their interest with CityFibre to receive information when services are available or check their postcode to see if services are currently available: www.cityfibre.com/PR-Register.