Growth is not easy. There are times when it is thrilling and other times when it is defeating.
We started on a journey to prepare students for the fast-changing world of technology by exposing students to digital literacy and computational skills. It required up-to-date top notch technology courses, our team of passionate teachers, and a creative mind to constantly innovate and come up with new curriculum for our students.
Not forgetting doing all these while we stay true to the heart of Kodecoon Academy which is our passion and commitment to the student and parent community.
As time flies past and we approach the end of January 2020, it is a good time to reflect on what Kodecoon has accomplished and share some of our directions for this year.
Our People
Starting with our people as that is the core foundation of our business. Without passionate teachers and a strong team to manage our schedules across 10+ locations, we will not be where we are today. This 2020, we continue to build a strong team, ensuring that we have the right people and on-boarding new talent with fresh ideas and energy.
It is not an easy task, finding the right people for the team. Often so, we meet talented individuals who are very technical but might not be the best fit in a classroom setting, and vice versa. This adds to the reason why we would like to take the chance and thank our team. We appreciate all the hard work that our people have put into 2019.
Our Kodecoon teachers is a group of driven individuals who not only love anything tech-related, but also love to teach and work closely with children. They not only take pride in seeing themselves as facilitators in class, but the students’ mentors to challenge our students and push the boundaries of their imaginations.
Each instructor has worked hard to make sure every student is motivated to reach their full potential. The work does not stop with each week after the two-hour coding class. The spirit of mentorship is very strong – evident from the weekly Monday night calls that the teaching team will make to share any classroom insights and individual student’s progress so as to identify and hand pick students for Kodecoon’s competitive coding team. We see the effort that you have put in for your students.
So, thank you.
Our Students
Driving more students to go into competitive coding and attend hackathons was a big focus for 2019. We are so proud to share that Kodecoon students participated in nationwide IMDA Code Xtreme Apps 2019 competition and managed to clinch the 2nd and 3rd positions under the Junior Category. This was the first time we sent our Kodecoon students for competitive coding training and the effort that our teachers and students have put in was commendable. As the student count grows over the years, to date we have been a part of 1500 students’ coding journey.
A shout out to our students, Alysa and Vera, who managed to get into their preferred secondary schools namely Ngee Ann Secondary and School of Science & Technology via Direct School Admission (DSA) with their programming portfolio under the Science, Mathematics and Engineering category.
With curriculum to provide students with avenues for self-exploration, Kodecoon’s goal is to equip every student with the knowledge and skills to transform their ideas into reality with code. We also would like to thank every Kodecoon student who inspired us with their enthusiasm and passion for technology – even at such a young age. It is with such adoption of the innovators’ mindset that we are able to push further in every student’s coding journey to break limits and create real world digital solutions.
Our Parents & Partners
Authenticity and consistency. These are two key words any parent, partner, or staff will describe the Kodecoon culture.
When we first started this business back in 2016, it was a leap of faith to jump from a stable full-time job in the corporate scene to our passion project. This is also why both the Kodecoon founders, Deddy and Himmy, are still very much involved in teaching our students, to receive first hand feedback about our content and curriculum. Our pedagogy involves adopting a student-centred approach in our classroom setting to allow a proactive learning environment so that our students are able to effectively learn through active class discussion and apply programming concepts to make their ideas come alive.
As the Kodecoon community are the key cornerstones of our business, it is with the support of our parents and partners that we are able to gain recognition and win the award for Best in-Application Based Coding Classes. We are incredibly thankful for all the parent reviews we have received on Google and Facebook – validating our beliefs and our passion towards education.
Special thanks to partners who trusted us for us to venture into social enterprises, providing coding classes to underserved and/or underprivileged communities like special needs students at APSN Tanglin School and children’s home like Chen Su Lan. We also would like to extend our gratitude to schools like Rivervale Primary, Anglo-Chinese School, Nanhua Primary, Nanyang Primary, Dunman High and Rosyth School who shared the same beliefs and pedagogy with us.
Our team was also honoured to co-organize a coding hackathon, termed Kode It Sparkies! with partners like Times Publishing and Shangri-la hotel.
Quality coding education should be made more accessible to children despite its location. As we grow our Singapore business to cater for the local inquisitive students, Kodecoon is slowly expanding its regional Southeast Asian presence with holiday programs conducted in Medan, Indonesia and having increasing number of overseas students flying specially to Singapore for workshops.
Going Forward
12 months ahead, the entire Kodecoon team houses strong intentions to make this year better than ever with new goals. 2020 will be an exciting year for us as we gear up for the following upcoming projects:
1. Family Day on 23 May 2020, Saturday
Drawing from the previous success from 2019 Family Gathering, this year we are honoured to have invited Mr. Ee Jay to be our guest speaker at our fireside chat, who is a specialist in his field of parenting and counselling, where he has been providing counselling support and consultations to more than 500 children, teenagers and parents. The event will consist of an intimate sharing on the importance of media literacy as well as tips to ensure cyber wellness for the students. A separate workshop will be conducted for students to teach them more on cybersecurity. If you are keen to join us, drop us a Whatsapp at +65 87792872 to find out more!
2. Partnership with Lenovo
Starting 2020, we will be collaborating more with Lenovo. Most of our parents’ questions and feedback stem from the type of device to get for their child. This is why we are hyped to share that any of our Kodecoon parents will be entitled a 15% off when they purchase any PC or Lenovo accessories. Valid for online purchases, the promo code will have to be inserted before checkout to get the discount.
3. Coding Competitions and Hackathons
We will continue to drive application-based learning as we train our students to create practical projects that are meaningful to them. As we will hand pick more students in our cohort to join our Kodecoon’s competitive coding teams, we are also on a constant lookout for partnership to organize hackathons together. Feel free to reach out if you know of any potential partners!
4. Social Missions
Kodecoon’s passion in coding education extends more than just making kids independent, self-directed learners and creators. We are in the midst of planning a social mission to celebrate our anniversary to make work more meaningful for our team to give back to the society, but also to help in character development for our students. Kodecoon has always aimed to achieve more than just teaching students to code, but to groom and grow with them.
Looking back on our growth in 2019, we look forward to seeing what we can achieve with our team in 2020. We also hope you (and your child) will join us on this journey together. We hold it upon ourselves to make Kodecoon more than just a coding school.