ONLINE Unity 4 DofE (ages 13-17)

Spark4Kids offers DofE computer coding and touch-typing courses towards gaining the Duke of Edinburgh (Skills section) award.

Kindly note:

• Attendees can start a course at any time during the school year
• All courses have LIVE! tutors supporting attendees during online sessions
• Full training on using our online classroom is provided to attendees
• Sessions run for an hour on Wednesdays, starting at 6pm and 7pm, and Saturdays, starting at 11am.
• Our terms follow the school calendar, for the convenience of participants and their families

To book this online course, please select your options from the “Book Course” section on this page and then click on “Add to Basket”. Once you are happy with your course selection in the Basket, click “View Basket” and complete your booking.

 

Course Information

Our ONLINE Unity 4 DofE is a game design course for attendees aged 13-17, during which they will complete a number of video game coding and level design projects using the professionally-capable Unity games engine and the MonoDevelop scripting tool. Attendees will learn the basics of coding in the C# language, as well as how to operate the Unity engine to produce polished, fully-realised games.

Attendees of all abilities are welcome, from beginners (who have never written a line of code) all the way through to kids who have prior coding experience.

Note that these weekly sessions are led by a LIVE!, remote tutor who is able to provide attendees guidance in real-time, along with progress reviews during the sessions. At the end of the course, you will receive a Spark4Kids certificate and a Skills Assessor report will be submitted to the Duke of Edinburgh towards your eventual skills award.

 

DofE Term Dates 2023

Our DofE classes can be joined at any time during the school term, with participants attending classes until they complete their quota of sessions.

Please note that there will be no coding sessions on the following dates:

• May Half Term: 29th May – 4th June 2023
• Summer Holidays: 17th July – 11th September 2023

Note that the above times are London/UK times – please convert to your local time to ensure the online classes work for you.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

 

Attendance

Sessions for each course are held once a week, and children registered on a course will be expected to attend on a weekly basis, on the day and at the time chosen at course registration.

 

Safeguarding Policy

All of our tutors are DBS-checked, and our website as well as virtual LIVE! classrooms have high levels of security built-in, using standard security protocols to secure yours and our data.

All sessions are also monitored continuously, and our tutors will not tolerate bullying, bad language or inappropriate questions, conversations or content.

Follow this link to access our Safeguarding Policy.

• 2 participants booking together – 8% off
• 3-5 participants booking as a group – 12% off
• 6-10 participants booking as a group – 20% off

 

Pay Monthly by Instalments

Kindly note that all of our Duke of Edinburgh Bronze, Silver and Gold courses offer the option to pay monthly in instalments. To find out more about our payment plans do get in touch with us: Contact Form

Childcare Vouchers

Spark4Kids accepts childcare vouchers as fee payment towards all of our courses from the following childcare voucher providers:

• Bravo Benefits (formerly Busy Bees)
• Care-4
• Childcare Grants
• ComputerShare
• Co-operative Flexible Benefits
• Edenred
• Employers For Childcare
• Enjoy Benefits
• FairCare
• Fideliti
• KiddiVouchers
• My Family Care
• NW Brown
• Reward Gateway
• Sodexo
• UK Government Tax-Free Credit vouchers (via Childcare Choices)
• Wider Plan

To pay for a course using childcare vouchers, select the course you want, add to basket, and then proceed to check-out by clicking “View Basket” (you may need access to your email account). When at check-out, choose “Pay with Childcare Vouchers” as the payment option, and follow the on-screen prompts to complete your booking (you will be emailed Spark4Kids voucher payment details in order for you to complete payment via your childcare providers website).

We can also accept a fee payment that is split between a childcare voucher payment and a standard debit/credit card payment (e.g. if your remaining childcare voucher balance isn’t enough to cover the course fee). To do this, kindly get in touch using the contact details listed in the footer of this page.

Unity3D System Requirements

The system requirements below only apply if your child is attending the online, remotely accessible version of this course.

Icons courtesy of Icon8

• Hardware: Desktop computer, microphone and speakers (or headset with mic), mouse and keyboard, a fast internet connection.
• Operating System: Windows 7 or above (64bit only), Mac (10.12 or above), Chromebook (Linux Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 and CentOS 7)
• License: Free
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Disk Space: 8GB
• Processor: X64 architecture with SSE2 instruction set support (most modern devices support this)
• Graphics: DX10 (shader model 4.0) capabilities

To find out what your computers’ technical specifications are, kindly use the links below:

• Microsoft Windows
• Apple Mac
• Google Chromebook

Our online classroom software requires minimum internet speeds of 5 Mbps for upload and 15 Mbps for download. The vast majority of broadband providers’ packages will exceed these speeds. To test the speed of your broadband click the link below:

Check My Speed