Senior Tech Cadets, grades 9–12
Text-based and portfolio first. Python, React, mobile and AI development, with work that stands up to being looked at.
- Grades
- 9–12
- Ages
- 14–18
- Each session
- 90min
- Class size
- 15max
- In the room
- 1 instructor
How we teach this age group
By grade nine a student is being assessed, and a coding class that ignores that is a class they will drop in March. Senior Tech Cadets is written to produce two things at once: a portfolio of work a student genuinely built, and a firmer grip on the computer science their school is already examining them on.
Everything is typed. Students work in a real editor, use a terminal, and put their work in version control from the second course onward. We do not simulate professional tools with friendlier ones, because the gap between the two is where most self-taught students stall.
Courses are project-shaped rather than topic-shaped. A student learns HTTP because their app needs to fetch something, and learns about time complexity because their search is slow on a list of ten thousand rows. The theory is examined properly, but it arrives attached to a reason.
What it covers
- Python from fundamentals through files, data structures and APIs
- AI development: building real software against a model API, with embeddings, retrieval and evaluation
- Web development with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React
- Mobile apps with React Native, running on the student's own phone
- Computer science fundamentals aligned to Matric CS and O/A-Level Computer Science
- Git, GitHub and deploying work to a public URL
Who teaches the session
One instructor.
Weekly commitment
About 3 hours of class, plus 1–2 hours of project work
2 live sessions a week of 90 minutes each.
Courses in Senior Tech Cadets
Each course runs as its own cohort. A student takes them in the order that suits where they are starting from.
Python programming, senior
Twelve weeks from first line to a working command-line application, using real tools, version control and tests.
- Grades
- Grades 9–12
- Length
- 12 weeks
Web development with React
Twelve weeks from HTML to a deployed React application with real data, a public URL and a repository behind it.
- Grades
- Grades 9–12
- Length
- 12 weeks
Mobile app development
Twelve weeks building apps with React Native and Expo, running on the student's own phone from week two.
- Grades
- Grades 10–12
- Length
- 12 weeks
AI development
Ten weeks building software that uses language models properly: APIs, embeddings, retrieval, evaluation and cost.
- Grades
- Grades 10–12
- Length
- 10 weeks
Computer science fundamentals
Fourteen weeks on how computers actually work, written to sit alongside Matric CS and O/A-Level Computer Science.
- Grades
- Grades 9–12
- Length
- 14 weeks
A sample eight weeks
Courses differ in content, but the shape of the first eight weeks is consistent across the track. This is what it looks like.
- Week 01
Environment and first commit
Editor, terminal, Python or Node installed and working, and a first repository pushed to GitHub.
- Week 02
Language fundamentals, properly
Types, control flow and functions, with an emphasis on reading errors rather than fearing them.
- Week 03
Data structures in practice
Lists, dictionaries and objects used on a dataset large enough that the choice starts to matter.
- Week 04
Working with other people's code
Reading documentation, installing a package, and calling an API that returns real data.
- Week 05
Project one, scoped and started
Students write a one-page spec, get it reviewed, and begin building against it.
- Week 06
Debugging as a method
Reading a stack trace, bisecting a problem, and writing the first tests.
- Week 07
Shipping
Deploying the project to a public URL and writing a README a stranger can follow.
- Week 08
Review and defence
Each student walks the group through their code and answers questions on why they built it that way.
What your child has at the end of a term
- Two to three finished projects on a public GitHub profile
- A deployed application with a URL that can be shared
- Fluency in one language, and enough of a second to read it
- Exam-relevant command of data representation, algorithms and problem solving
Projects they build
- A validated unit converter
- A CSV data report generated from a real dataset
- A live-data program built against a public API
- A documented, tested command-line application of the student's own design
- A responsive page built to a supplied design
- A to-do application built twice: once in plain JavaScript, once in React
- A data-driven, filterable list application
- A deployed multi-page React project of the student's own design
How this sits alongside board and O/A-Level exams
We assume a Senior Tech Cadet has exams, and we plan around them rather than competing with them. Class content maps deliberately onto the parts of Matric Computer Science and Cambridge O and A Level Computer Science that students most often lose marks on: data representation and number bases, algorithm design and tracing, program logic questions, and the structured written answers that ask a student to justify a choice.
During board and O/A-Level exam season, a family can pause enrolment for up to eight weeks and resume in the same track without losing their place. Tell us the dates and we will move the student to a lighter schedule or hold the seat.
To be plain about what this is not: this is not a tuition or exam-coaching service, we do not teach to a specific paper, and we do not mark past papers. Students consistently report that the written CS paper gets easier once they have actually built things, and that is the mechanism we rely on — not extra drilling.
Try a Senior Tech Cadets class, free
A full session at the right level for your child’s grade. They will build something in it, and no payment details are needed to book.