As the school holidays get closer, parents ask me the same question: should my child join a holiday camp, or start weekly classes?
The two use the same tools, so it can look like the only difference is the calendar. It isn't. A camp and a weekly class feel very different to a child, and that difference is the reason to pick one over the other.
Quick Answer: A weekly class spreads the learning out: one lesson a week for about three months, with time between lessons for ideas to settle. A holiday camp compresses it: a lesson every day for a week. That makes a camp faster paced and more dense. It is heavier, and it is more intellectually stimulating because of that. Students are stretched towards the limit of what they can hold in their heads, they have to think critically, and they have fun doing it.
The Difference at a Glance
- Weekly classes: one lesson a week, 1.5 to 2 hours long, for 10 to 12 weeks.
- Holiday camps: 2 hours a day, Monday to Friday, for one week.
A camp is ten hours of class in five days. In a weekly class, the same ten hours take five to seven weeks. Everything else about the difference follows from that.
A Camp Moves Faster
In a weekly class, seven days pass between one lesson and the next. That gap is useful, and I'll come back to it, but it also means every lesson starts by getting back to where we stopped.
In a camp there is no gap. Monday's idea gets used again on Tuesday and built on by Wednesday. Nothing has time to fade, so each day starts where the last one ended and the week picks up speed as it goes.
A Camp Is More Dense
Because the days sit back to back, more gets stacked on top of what a student already knows. By the middle of the week they are holding a lot in their head at once: how their project works, what each piece of code does, and what they want to change next.
That is what I mean by dense. It isn't more hours in the chair. It's more ideas in play at the same time.
Heavier, and That's the Point
I won't pretend a camp is the light option. It is heavier than a weekly class. Students push towards the limit of their mental capacity, and some days they will come home tired.
That is a good thing. A mind grows the way a muscle does, by being asked for a little more than is comfortable. A camp puts a child at that edge every day for a week. They can't coast, so they have to think critically: why didn't that work, what should I try next, how do these pieces fit together?
A week of thinking like that stretches a child further than they expect, and usually further than their parents expect too.
Why It Still Feels Like Fun
Hard and fun are not opposites. Ask any child who has spent an afternoon stuck on one level of a game they love.
A camp is hard in that same way. The effort goes into something the student cares about, whether that's their own game or their own AI, and they see the result on screen every day. The challenge is a big part of the fun.
What Weekly Classes Do Better
The gap between weekly lessons is not wasted time.
Ideas get time to settle. A child who meets a new concept on Saturday has a week to turn it over before the next one arrives. Some children learn best this way.
There is room to practise. A student who goes home and keeps tinkering comes back the next week with questions of their own.
It fits around school. One lesson a week sits comfortably beside homework, tuition and CCAs during term time.
It goes further. A term of lessons has room for a bigger project and for more of the subject than one week can hold.
Which One Suits Your Child?
A camp is a good fit for a child who:
- likes to get absorbed in one thing and stay with it
- enjoys a challenge and doesn't mind being stretched
- has free time in the holidays and wants to use it well
- wants to try coding properly before committing to a full term
Weekly classes are a good fit for a child who:
- prefers a steady pace, with time to take each idea in
- has a full schedule and can spare one slot a week
- wants to go deeper into a subject over several months
The two also work well together. A camp in the holidays gets a child started with a week of momentum, and weekly classes keep it going once school is back.
Our Holiday Camps
We run three holiday coding camps, every week from 23 Nov to 27 Dec 2026. Each one is a week long, Monday to Friday (AI & Python Holiday Camp: Monday to Sunday), 2 hours a day, in person at our Jurong East studio or live online.
- Roblox Holiday Camp, ages 7–12, based on our Roblox coding classes
- Game Development Holiday Camp, ages 12–17, based on our game development course
- AI & Python Holiday Camp, ages 13–17, based on our AI & Python classes
Pick a week on the camps page and it opens WhatsApp with the camp and the dates already typed. Unsure? Book a free trial class before the camp to test it out.
