I am providing you with this letter as a form of testimonial, and I should say at the outset that it was unsolicited and came about on my own initiative after I received one of your emails with current registration attachments and contacted you to inform you that my children were now no longer able to enroll again.
My wife and I became aware of Real Programming 4 Kids™ through what is known as the weekly “Friday File” email communication to parents from Branksome Hall, where our daughter was a student (since grade 1 in fact. She graduated last June with a 92% average and is now in Systems Design Engineering at Waterloo University.) This was in 2010.
Branksome Hall is, without any doubt, an excellent and in fact rather prominent private girl’s school in Toronto, and the only one of the top 3 or 4 such schools in Toronto providing the IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum that is so favoured by Universities not only in Canada but across the world. (It recently also established a campus in South Korea, financed entirely by that government, which obviously recognizes its excellence.) At this time in 2010, RP4K classes were also conveniently located at Branksome Hall, which provided you with the use of their computer lab.
Both my daughter and our son (who attends Upper Canada College, another exceptional private school with an IB curriculum) were participants in RP4K for the next 4 years, from 2010 to 2013 – and quite enthusiastically so. At the time our son was 11 years old; our daughter was 13.
Both of our children were enrolled in the following: the RP4K summer 2010 Beginner+ Visual Basic Pacman camp, the RP4K school season 2010-2011 Developing+ Visual Basic Mario course, the RP4K summer 2011 Intermediate Java Asteroids camp, and the RP4K school season 2011-2012 Advanced Java Multiplayer course. My daughter participated in your advanced summer 2012 C++ Megaman camp; and my son also took your advanced summer 2013 C++ Megaman camp.
Both of our children loved your courses and very much enjoyed camps. They both learned a great deal of computer programming. They were in agreement that your courses not only assisted them greatly when they subsequently took computer programming as a subject course at their respective schools; but that your courses assisted them in their math and physics courses as well. (They have both excelled in these subjects since then.)
In addition, RP4K helped my daughter prepare for her Systems Design Engineering program at the University of Waterloo, which she has been enrolled in since September 2014 (with a recent “A-” grade.) While I cannot say this for certain, it is also possible that having taken your courses, and having them in her résumé, assisted my daughter in being admitted to that course, which is one of the 3 or 4 toughest Engineering courses to gain admission to at Waterloo, which, along with University of Toronto, are recognized as the best Canadian universities for Engineering, math, and science.
In fact, she was already introduced to university-level Computer Programming concepts through RP4K. This, along with the boost that your courses gave her math and physics grades, made things easier when she entered University of Waterloo. (My son’s grade 10 Christmas report card Physics grade was 96%, and 86% in Enriched Math (much tougher than the regular Math course), so your RP4K courses have continued to assist him as well – and he did exceptionally well (87%) in his grade 9 computer science course last year.)
It is rare to find a “gem” like RP4K, that combines learning computer game programming and fun, all in one class. As a parent, I appreciated the math and physics applications that manifest themselves when my kids were learning game programming in the RP4K classes. I especially appreciated your small classes of a maximum of 4 students per instructor. On occasion, in fact, they wound up in classes of only 2 or 3 students, yet your policy kept the tuition the same as if there had been 4 kids.
I should add that both of my children were also very happy with the teachers that you provided to them. In fact, my daughter mentioned to me recently that she would love to come back as a tutor for one of her co-op jobs, except that Waterloo requires that its co-op students be supervised by at least one Professional Engineer. Nonetheless, this enthusiasm that she still has speaks well for RP4K.
I would highly recommend Real Programming 4 Kids to other parents. I recall that some years ago another parent told me that in his opinion, while 40 years ago the second language to have your children learn may have been French, and 30 years ago it may have been Japanese, or Mandarin 20 years ago, since then the best second language for one’s children to learn is computer code. If that is so, and it may well be correct, then RP4K is certainly an excellent start.
In addition, on a more personal note, my wife and I have found it a genuine pleasure to have dealt with Elliott Bay.
Finally, I would be happy to confirm all of this and more to any parents to whom you provide this letter are considering enrolling their children in RP4K, if they might wish to call me.
Yours truly,
John Lamont
