How the classes actually run
The operational detail, stated plainly. If something here would not work for your household, it is better to know now than in week three.
The format of a session
Everything is live. An instructor is on video for the whole session, and there are no pre-recorded lessons standing in for teaching. Junior classes are capped at twelve students and run with a teaching assistant alongside the instructor; senior classes are capped at fifteen.
A session runs the same way each week: a short demonstration, then the students build while the instructor moves between them, then a few minutes at the end where somebody shows what they did. Nobody sits through ninety minutes of lecture. In a Junior class the teaching assistant is working the room at the same time, which is what keeps the build time from turning into twelve children waiting their turn.
- Junior class size
- 12students maximum
- Junior class staff
- 2instructor and assistant
- Senior class size
- 15students maximum
- Junior session
- 75minutes
- Senior session
- 90minutes
- Sessions each week
- 2live, with an instructor
- Sessions recorded
- Allshared with the class
Missed classes, recordings and make-ups
Every session is recorded
Recordings go to the families in that class within a few hours and stay available for the length of the course. They are shared privately with enrolled students and are not published anywhere public.
If a class is missed
Watch the recording first. Then either join the same session in another group that week, where a seat is free, or book a make-up slot with an instructor. Each student has two make-up sessions included per course.
If we have to cancel
If an instructor is unwell or a session cannot run, we tell you as early as we can and the session is rescheduled, not dropped. It does not count against your make-ups.
Pausing
Senior Tech Cadets can pause for up to eight weeks around board and O/A-Level exams and keep their place in the track. Tell us the dates in advance.
Load-shedding, power cuts and patchy internet
This is the first practical question most parents in Pakistan have, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a paragraph about our commitment to reliability.
Load-shedding will occasionally take a student out of a class. When it does, nothing is lost: the session is recorded and shared the same day, and a student who misses more than about twenty minutes can join another group's session that week or take a make-up slot. No family has ever needed to repeat a course because of an outage, and no one is marked absent for a power cut.
Sessions are designed to work on a modest connection. Video from the instructor, screen sharing, and audio are what a session actually needs, and a student can turn their own camera off entirely without missing anything. If a student's connection is weak, we ask them to share their screen and speak, and drop video — that combination works on far less bandwidth than most families expect.
If your household schedules around load-shedding hours, tell us when you book and we will put your child in a group whose session times avoid them. We would rather move a student to a different slot than have them join half of every class.
What your child needs
- A laptop or desktop computer
- Windows, macOS or Linux, from roughly the last eight years. It does not need to be new or powerful. A tablet or a phone is not enough — students write code and share their screen.
- A stable internet connection
- Enough for a video call with screen sharing. Around 5 Mbps is comfortable; less will still work if the student turns their own camera off.
- Headphones with a microphone
- Any pair works. This matters more than it sounds: a student on speakers in a room with other people participates far less.
- A quiet place to sit for the session
- Not a separate room necessarily, but somewhere they can talk out loud and concentrate for 75 to 90 minutes.
All software used in every course is free: Scratch, Python, Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub and Expo. There is nothing to buy. Where a course touches a paid service, the coursework is designed to fit inside the free tier, and we tell you in advance if a student's own project would go beyond it.
How you find out how your child is doing
Every four weeks you get a written update from the instructor: what has been covered, what your child has built, where they are finding it hard, and what would help at home. It goes to the email address you enrol with.
You can ask for a fifteen-minute call with the instructor at any point during a course, and we will arrange it within the week.
We write these honestly. If your child is not engaging, or is in a course that is too advanced or too easy for them, the update will say so. Telling a parent everything is going well when it is not helps nobody, and it is how a student ends up quietly disliking a subject.
What happens when you book a trial
- 01
You book a slot
Fill in the form with your child's grade and the times that work for you. It takes about a minute, and we do not ask for payment details.
- 02
We confirm within one working day
We reply on WhatsApp or by email with a confirmed time and a video link. If nothing on your list works, we will offer alternatives.
- 03
Your child joins a real class
A full session at the right level for their grade, with an instructor and other students. They will build something in it.
- 04
We tell you what we honestly think
Which course we would start them in, and why. If we think a student is not ready for the course you asked about, or would be bored in it, we will say so.
It takes about a minute to book, and we do not ask for payment details.
Still have questions? Read what other parents asked.