PTA Podcast Summer Fête Game!

Automatically generated from the audio, so it may not be perfectly word-for-word.

Hi, welcome to the PTA Podcast. My name is Yvonne, and I've been a PTA volunteer for a few years now. But I'm just one of thousands of volunteers up and down the country who all want to make a difference to their schools. PTAs are becoming even more crucial in UK schools to boost budgets, and I find it fascinating to talk to other volunteers about the different approaches they take. So please join me in this podcast to share information, generate ideas, debate issues, and celebrate success. And I hope that you can take something away for your PTA today. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the PTA podcast. Doesn't May Half Term feel like ages ago? I always forget how busy this final term of the year can be. At my school we have Sports Day, a key stage two production, loads of other sporting events, ice cream sales, school disco, concerts. There's just so much going on this term, and I'm struggling actually to keep on top of everything that's happening. I'm also normally knee deep in organising a PTA summer fate too, but not this year. We had our sports day last week, and I realised it was my first sports day in I think four years where I wasn't also running around doing PTA stuff at the same time. It actually felt quite nice to just concentrate on one thing and have time to chat to my friends without leaving half-finished conversations as I rushed off to do something. So our sports day at school is um almost a whole day event. Our sports day actually this year coincided with one of the incredibly hot um Fridays. So my school actually moves sports day to the morning, whereas it was going to be the afternoon when it was forecast to be 29 degrees or something ridiculous. So what they do is they um before the actual sports day races take place, the year fives and sixes have developed some sporting games, um, and the children are divided into their houses and they go round this kind of round robin of different um activities, and the year fives and sixes show the younger ones how to take part in the games, and then they um keep a score so each house gets a score at the end of that little session, which is really nice because my son, who's in year five, really loved the responsibility of coming up with a game based on sports sports skills and um keeping score, he really loved being part of that. And then they have break time, and then they did the traditional um sports day races. And parents are invited to come and watch and bring a picnic lunch to share with their children, and it's just a really lovely atmosphere because um most parents do come and they bring other members of their family as well, and it's just just really nice with everyone cheering everybody else on, and um you know, seeing seeing how the kids enjoy it, so yeah, it's it's a lovely event, and um that's why actually in the last four years, because there are so many parents there, we have um as a PTA often had something at Sports Day, we never used to, but about four years ago we decided to change that. Um, so one year I was selling raffle tickets, cake and ice creams, another time I was organising our delayed colour run, which I talk about in episode 14 if you haven't listened to that already. And last year I was drawing our big summer raffle that we organised instead of a summer fate last year. So I'm normally quite busy and I can't quite relax on sports day like everybody else can and watch everything. And do you know I'm so busy with life in general and um the other things my children have got going on? But I don't really know how I managed to fit in organising a big summer fate now. Kind of thinking about it now when I'm not doing one. I have no idea how I managed to do that, but it certainly explains why I always used to feel so stressed about it and overwhelmed with it at this time of year. Um, have you listened to my last episode number 28 called Summer Fate Survival Guide? It's been a really popular episode, actually, a lot of people have um listened to that, which is really nice. And um, if you've listened to it, I would really love to hear what you thought of it. It's an episode where I talk about um how I have coped with organising a big event like the Summer Fate, um, especially those times when it's felt so overwhelming, I could I felt like I couldn't carry on organising it. So I did pass on some of the things that I try to do just to keep myself um from not feeling overwhelmed. So if you are still to have your summer fate, um you might like to uh go ahead and listen to that episode. So another thing that's been keeping me uh busy in the last two weeks, um let alone all these things at school, is that my eldest son has had his year 11 prom. In fact, that happened last night. So the last two weeks um I've been spending some time with him sorting out his outfit, and we got him a really lovely smart suit and shirt and finished it off with a tie um and a little um pocket handkerchief. I'm not quite sure, pocket squares, that what you call them. Um so he went for um a suit that was like um dark blue and black check. Then we had a white shirt with with which just had some little um almost like little dots um in black on all over it, and then a sort of silvery blue, really lovely tie um and pocket square in his jacket, and he just looked so grown up and so smart and just really handsome, and um I was looking at him thinking, I can't believe you're related to me because you just look amazing, and it was so exciting to see him looking so grown up, and um I know the tradition at prom now is that um the children arrive in these really fancy cars, and uh we do not possess a really fancy car, and we also don't know anyone who has a really fancy car. So um, so I said to Rowan that uh we need to think of a different way of him getting to prom, and so we came up with the idea of him going with a friend in a wheelbarrow. So um we uh bought we needed a new wheelbarrow anyway, but we bought a really nice new clean wheelbarrow, and him and his friend lined up um with the cars uh along the driveway to this fancy house where their prom was, and um all these Lamborghinis and Porsches and American-style cars and a stretch hummer and some tractors. It was it was such a spectacle. Um, if your children are still at primary school and you haven't experienced a secondary school prom, then you are in for such a treat. I had no idea it was going to look as amazing as it did. Um we didn't really know what to expect. Anyway, we were there, we dropped my son off so he could meet his friend, and then we we as parents all had to stand behind a barrier to watch the entrance of all these um year 11s in their amazing suits and dresses. And we were so lucky with the weather, it was beautiful and sunny, and yeah, every and oh oh, what was so special though was just the atmosphere, and all the members of staff, um, the head teacher, the deputy heads, and the year 11 tutors were all um standing at the entrance of this um like stately home, which is used for weddings where they had the prom. They were standing in the entranceway, and every time the children got out of their cars or arrived, they would just cheer and clap and yell and shout, and it was just the most wonderful atmosphere, and it just it just felt like there was uh so much love there. Um yeah, oh it's making me feel emotional just talking about it. Um, anyway, my son lined up between all of these cars with his wheelbarrow and his friend, and they put these sunglasses on and they just looked so cool and got a really big cheer um from the crowd, so it was lovely. Um, and uh yeah, such a special moment. And you know, I started um on the PTA at my primary school when my eldest son was probably in year one or year two at that school, and now I've just taken him to his year 11 prom. So uh and he has changed so much um and really blossomed into a lovely young man, and I'm so proud of him, and and so proud that we got to go and see um him arrive at his prom with all his friends. It was a really special moment, so that's been a big thing that I've been doing for the last uh two weeks as well as everything else, and I just really wanted to share that with you because um it's something you can hopefully look forward to with your own children. So I'm not organising any type of fate this year, but I have been working on something for the past few weeks which I'm hoping you will all enjoy. I have made a PTA Podcast Summer Fate computer game. It's available uh to play on my website right now, uh PTApodcast.com. There's a link at the top of my um page in the menu section, but I will also put a link directly to it in the show notes for this episode. It is a text-based adventure game, the sort of game you might remember from your childhood depending on how old you are. If you're my age, you might remember it from your childhood playing something similar on one of those really old uh BBC computers. But you basically choose actions to take based on a number of options on the screen, so it doesn't really have any pictures on it, it's not like a platform game or anything, it's just text on the screen, and you pick some options and then different things happen. It's very, very easy, very self-explanatory, and it probably only takes about 10 minutes to play. Um, I had the idea for it, as the process to organise something like a summer fate lends itself perfectly to this game format. So I wrote the content of the game, but it was my very clever 10-year-old son Patrick who actually turned my idea into a reality as he coded all of it for me. So I just kind of told him what I wanted and he made it happen, which is just incredible that he has picked up these skills. He just has an interest in coding. Um, and my husband is quite clued into coding and the different ways you can help your child learn about that. So, um, but yeah, he's he's very interested in it and was really keen to help me. So, and now you can have a go for yourself because the game is up and running and uh freely available to everyone. So I'm just going to go and grab Patrick and we can tell you a bit about it. So, Patrick, can you start off by telling my listeners what we have developed? What is the game we have made?

So we have made a text-based adventure game uh where you are the head of a PTA organisation for whatever school it is. Um the school is roughly 280 people there, and you're going to have your summer fate soon. So you have to you are eight weeks away from your summer fate, and you have to do loads of different actions, two per week. You can get a wet weather plan, you can organise a PTA meeting, you can meet with a head teacher, you can advertise for volunteers, and you can also gate stalls. It is very enjoyable, I've got to say. And uh we've worked really hard at it, so we hope you enjoy it.

Yeah, we've worked very hard. There's been many hours of writing content and coding to get this game off the ground, hasn't there? Yeah. Yeah. And uh can you tell me how you have learnt how to code something like this? Because it blew my mind when I had the idea of this game and you were right there saying that you could code it for me. So can you tell me how you have learnt to do this?

So I've been coding for quite a while now. Uh Daddy taught me because um I really wanted to learn how to code. Um I started off with block coding and moved on to text-based coding where you just type everything up and it will run whatever you type. And I've moved back to block coding, but now I'm using make code arcade, which is a very good thing because you can do block coding, which is blocks, which you snap together to do strings of code. Okay. Um, and you can also do string coding, which is just typing it all out. Um, so you can do more than just blocks. And it's really good for teaching people how to learn to code.

Okay.

And I really, really like it.

So um how did you so it has blocks of it's like like pre-made code that you just kind of drag and drop into the screen, isn't it? And then you can add whatever details you want by typing your own bits of code. So um was that quite hard to do? Because I guess some of the things I asked you to do for the game was something that you'd never done before. So, how did you figure out how to do the extra bits?

So, before I worked on our school's library app because we've just recently-ish got a library. Yeah. Um, and I wanted to code an app to help sort it out. Yeah. And I started doing it, and it it's actually pretty good. Um, and we did that, and that's when I first learned how to do complex uh coding. Yeah. And that that that was actually really good fun. And I thought, oh, I I could I could do a bit more. So we went on to uh doing coding and doing machines, and that was also really good fun. Okay. Uh what was the question again? It was how you learnt to do those bits of code. Oh, okay. So um when we were doing the library app, we to organise all the books we had to use something called a database where you can keep bits of information about the books which I used. Yeah. Um, and for this game we had to use another database, but it was really hard to find out how to use them because uh that isn't a block thing you can do with blocks. So we had to type up anything to do with the databases. Okay. Um and it took us a while to figure out how to do it.

Yeah, but you got there in the end.

We got there in the end. Yeah.

So have do you feel like you've learnt a lot of new skills in coding from doing the PTA game?

Definitely. Yeah. Um I've learnt lots more about block coding and a lot more about screen coding as well.

Okay. And you said you use something called make code arcade. Yes. So do you think that's a good way for other children to start doing coding?

Yes. I'd say it's about 8 plus. Okay. Um, and you can do it for block coding, which is a lot simpler, but you can also type it all out, which is also very good if you're gonna do coding later on. Um it's very, very good. And also, you can use handheld devices um and you can plug them in, and then you can uh use them once you've downloaded the game onto them, and you can just take them around with you and just play the game. Uh uh but there are other things that are Make Code, uh, but it they well basically Make Code Arcade is made for games, but there are some more things that Make Code has done. So you've got Make Code MicroBit, uh, which is made for schools, and what you can do is you can make your own things. It's not as complex as Mate Code Arcade, um, and you can get these little things, micro bits, um, with a 5x5 LED display, and you could make a game on it, but it's a lot harder. Yeah. Um, and you've also got uh Minecraft education, which is also another make code arc make code thing. Yeah um you have to use it on my my my my my my Minecraft education.

Okay, there's a lot of things beginning with M in this conversation on there.

Yeah, you can use it on Minecraft education and you can do loads of different things on it. Um but yeah, make code arcade is very, very good for learning to code.

Yeah, okay. And what's quite good about the Make Code Arcade is you get this little handheld device, or you can buy this little handheld device, which looks a bit like a Game Boy thing, doesn't it? And so you can code up a game and then have it on this device. So it looks like you've made your own Game Boy, which is just super cool, isn't it? And what we've done is we've put that onto the website, haven't we?

Yeah.

Yeah, so it looks uh looks good on the website.

Yeah, so in the thing, you've got a little simulator where it's got arrow keys and A and B. It's got not very many buttons, but you can do button combinations and things. Uh it's very, very good.

Okay. So going back to the game, was it difficult, Patrick, to make the game based on the ideas that I gave you? Yes.

So we had a lot of ideas that you gave us.

I have a lot of ideas.

Always. And then when you didn't have ideas, we wanted one. Yeah. So we coded the basic structure of the game. And then we just added on loads and loads of pieces to make it so much better. So now you can get stalls, and it's got little icons in the top left, top right corner. Yeah. Uh with volunteers, stalls, and volunteers running the stalls. That's right, yeah. And it's it's really cool.

Yeah, and you drew all those little tiny pictures, didn't you, yourself?

Yeah. We were gonna use them in a particular extension, which is like things that you can put onto the website so that you can do more things with the blocks. We're going to use that, but what's annoying is we can't because there was just a really annoying problem. And I actually even edited that code, which I've never done before. Um, and I had to use 8x8 pixel pictures because all the pictures in the game are pixel, pixelated. Yeah. So I made two little people behind desks and I made little duck. And there are some hidden little features that you might yet be able to find. Yes. They're very cool.

Yeah, there are some hidden surprises in the game, aren't there?

Yeah.

Because some tar some of the things in the game you can control and you can choose, and some of the things in the game are randomized, aren't they? Yeah. And surprises that you can't control. So if you play the game once, uh, you might get certain outcomes, and if you play it again, it might be quite different. So we did that, didn't we? Because um it keeps it more exciting, and lots of different things can happen when you're trying to organise a summer fate, some of which you just don't expect. So we wanted to include things like that, didn't we? Yes. And you you added some ideas of your own, didn't you?

Yeah. There's a one in thirty chance that you can get this really cool thing. Yeah, but don't tell people what it is.

Yeah. I'm not gonna tell you. We won't spoil the surprise. It's so good. It's so cool. Okay. And did you need a lot of help with coding the game?

Sometimes. Okay. I I think I did most of it myself, but there was like the databases I talked about. I really needed help from Daddy uh because they were very confusing.

Because obviously, as a non-coder myself, my vision was for the game and I had an idea of how it was going to work. And what I wanted to uh what I wanted the people to get out of the game is to understand, if you're not on the PTA, how difficult it can be to run a summer fate or any event, and how difficult it can be to get volunteers, and then you have all these things that happen during the organization phase that you just don't expect. And I really wanted the game to reflect that. So I had to tell you guys what I wanted it to be like, and then you had to figure out how to actually put that into a code, so it actually happened in the game. And I didn't know how difficult that was for you to do, but you've managed to achieve it, so that's Really good. So Patrick, you said that you picked um the size of the primary school in the game as two hundred and eighty pupils. Two hundred and eighty-one, but I rounded it down. Okay.

And why did you pick that number? So I searched up the average amount of children in a primary school in England, and we found it was 281. Okay. So I try I rounded it down so it was a lot nicer. And we put it in the game because we don't know what school how many people is going to be in the school. So we just put the average.

That's very good. And at the end of the game, obviously the goal of the game is to organise the summer fate, run the summer fate, and hopefully make a profit. So how did you work out how to because at the end of the game you get um an amount of money that you raise, don't you? So how did you work out how to put or how what amount of money to put in the floor?

Okay, so first thing is every week it shows you the weather forecast. Yeah. For the day of the fate, it's mostly different. But the last weather forecast for the day of the fate is the same on the day. So for the day of the fate, you can have good weather or bad weather. If it's good weather, you get 560 people. Yeah. Because each child brings one adult. Yeah. Um, and for each person they spend 50p at the fate, and then you have 50p at each stool. Okay. Um, and that was kind of confusing. And then if you get bad weather, you only get 280 because uh the people there, um half of the people would come. Yeah. Uh but if you've got a wet weather plan, you get 420, which is three quarters of the most thing you you can get.

Yeah, so there's there's things during the game that you can do to hopefully uh minimize any problems on the day of the fate, isn't it? Yeah. And we've added some things in. And there were more things that we want to add, so we're gonna try and uh amend the game over the next few months just to try and get some more things in like that.

And then we're gonna do a part two where where you get to run around the fate.

Oh yeah, that's your next project.

That's gonna be the best part.

Yeah. Oh, and the other thing that people don't know is that you have composed the music for the game, haven't you? And we've got two or three different bits of music, plus is it a couple of sound effects at certain points. So you have composed the music. How did you do that?

So Maker Arcade has an inbuilt picture creator where you can draw your own pictures, and it's got songmaker. And I decided, well, you can't really import songs, so I'll make my own. And they turned out actually pretty well.

Yeah, they're very good, they're very catchy, aren't they? Yeah. And and they repeat on a loop. So if you do um need to mute them, then you can. Well, I don't think I've got any more questions. I think all we want to do is to ask people to play it, isn't it?

Yeah.

And hopefully have fun. And hopefully, if you're a member of the PTA and you have um organised summer fates before, hopefully some of it will make you giggle. And uh hopefully you'll come out of the end of the game having run the fate and made a profit. So um, which is obviously what you want to do in real life if you're organizing a fate. Um, and we have some random events, we have a random challenge each week during the game, which um is not something you actually have to solve during the game, it's just something that happens during the organisation. Um, and some of those challenges, I would say uh 75% of those challenges are real challenges that I have had to deal with over my years of um uh organizing summer fates. So part of the fun of the game is also for you to guess which challenge which of the challenges are real ones that I've had to face and overcome, and which ones are ones we've made up. So there's an extra element in the game there. Patrick, thank you so much for coming on my podcast to talk about the game. And uh I feel so lucky that I had this idea for a game and that you guys have actually made it a reality. So thank you so much for taking part. Okay, I just think that um that interview is hilarious, which is obviously me who knows nothing about coding trying to talk to somebody who is clearly an expert in coding. Anyway, I really hope that you could um you could hear the enthusiasm in Patrick's voice when he talks about all the things that he's done for the PTA game. And if your child is interested in coding, I think Patrick did mention some websites and things that he's used. So if your child's into it, then maybe you could um have a look at some of those. Um and Patrick also mentioned um a library app. So um when I talked about the fundraising we did for our school library, we also um well Patrick and Adrian, my husband, they actually coded an app to use in the library, um, and we bought a little scanner from uh the internet for about 12 quid or something. And uh you can they have developed this app so that we can now scan barcodes of our library books um into the computer um so that the school knows what books are in the library. They honestly I don't know how they've managed to do this, but they have also in the library app managed to um print a barcode so every child um can get a library card so we can then allocate books to the children. So if the school are wondering where a particular book is, they can see if somebody has borrowed it. Um so that's where um Patrick started to do some coding, he worked on that with um my husband Adrian, and then he once he saw I think what he could actually achieve, that's kind of um spurred him on to do other things, including games. And um we also talked about the little device that you can buy to that goes with this make code arcade, and I'm gonna put a photo of it on my website so you can actually see what it's like. I think I described it in the interview as being like a Game Boy, and basically that is exactly what it is. Um, so what your child can do is they can code a game in this make code arcade website and then load it into this device, and then they can take the device with them and play it as they go, which is just really fun, and um I don't know, it just gives you a lovely sense of achievement that you've coded a game that's now on a device, and you can take it to your friend's house and play it with your friend. So that's um something that he has been so excited to uh to do. So I hope the interview with Patrick and hearing his enthusiasm for the PTA game has tempted you to give it a try. It's just a bit of fun, but as I said, I tried to reflect in the game how hard it can be to organise a fate. And um I got my mum and dad to test it for me. We did quite a lot of playtesting, but um, one of the things they were saying as they were playing it was, gosh, this is quite hard to get volunteers, isn't it? And I was thinking, Oh good, it's it's obviously working in the way that I uh wanted it to work because it is hard to get volunteers in real life, and as a PTA volunteer, I know that you will appreciate that and hopefully you will find it entertaining. So if you have completed your summer fate, then reward yourself with your favourite drink and snack and have a go at the PTA Podcast Summer Fate game. If you are yet to do your summer fate, then take a break and have a go. But if you are knee deep in organising your fate and it's feeling a tad overwhelming, then maybe wait and play this game afterwards, or you may have um a sense of humour failure because as I said, I've tried to make it true to life and I don't want um to add to your stresses at this time of year. Um that's all I wanted to say in this episode of the PTA Podcast. Please, please do let me know and I can tell Patrick if you have tried the game. Drop us an email. It's hello at ptapodcast.com. Let us know what you thought, let us know how much money you raised in the game. We'd love to hear it from you. And sign up to my mailing list if you want to be the first to hear that I've released an episode, just go to my website ptapodcast.com, and there is a uh section there where you can enter your email address. Um, I promise I'm not gonna bombard you with emails because, quite frankly, I don't have time to write loads of emails. I just send out a really short email just as I release the next episode. So it's just to keep you uh informed, really. And if you are yet to have your summer event, whatever it might be, I wish you lots and lots of luck with it, and uh I hope you can keep hold of your sanity. So I will speak to you next time on the PTA podcast. Bye for now.