Ludwigshafen am Rhein · Coding for children · Ages 6 to 12
Coding classes for kids in Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Rhineland-Palatinate has decided to make Informatik compulsory in every school, but not until the 2028/29 school year. A child who is six, eight or ten in Ludwigshafen today will spend most of their school years before that change. This page sets out what a child can learn at each age, what Rhineland-Palatinate schools teach now, what an English-speaking mentor does with a primary child, and a project on real Oggersheim rain where a child discovers that the same numbers can tell two different stories.
Live online since 2020 · 10,000+ students worldwide · a regular mentor who teaches your child in English
In short
For Ludwigshafen am Rhein children from 6 to 12, Modern Age Coders runs coding classes live online in English. Six to eight year olds build Scratch stories and games; from about nine they type Python. One mentor stays with a child week after week and adjusts to their pace and accent, in a class of fifteen to twenty peers or alone. Informatik is only compulsory in every Rhineland-Palatinate school from 2028/29.
Where Ludwigshafen children begin
Which first course suits a Ludwigshafen child?
A long course that grows with a child from six, a short Scratch course to test the water, and a Python course for children who already want to type.
At what age can a child in Ludwigshafen start coding?
At six, if the first steps are blocks and stories rather than typing. What a child does changes a lot between six and twelve, so groups are always formed by age.
What children do in our classes, by age (ours)
Age
School stage
What they build
6 and 7
Klasse 1 and 2
Short Scratch stories: a character walks, talks and changes costume
8 and 9
Klasse 3 and 4
Scratch games with scores, timers and levels
9 and 10
Klasse 4 and 5
First typed Python: drawings with a turtle, number games
11 and 12
Klasse 5 to 7
Python with lists and files, such as counting rainy days
The youngest
Six and seven year olds do not need to read long instructions. The mentor shows, the child copies, then changes one thing and sees what happens. Lessons are broken into short pieces with a small win every ten minutes.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, as almost everywhere in Germany, Grundschule runs from grade 1 to grade 4, so these are Grundschule children.
The older ones
From about nine, many children are ready to type. Python is a real language used by professionals, and children are proud to write the same code adults use.
By eleven or twelve, after the move to a secondary school such as a Gymnasium or a Realschule plus, a child can read a data file and answer a question about it, the kind of project in the rain section below.
Rhineland-Palatinate schools
What do Rhineland-Palatinate schools teach about computing?
For most children, not much yet. That is changing, but slowly, and the facts are clear in the Gesellschaft für Informatik's Informatik-Monitor 2026/27, read on 2 November 2026.
Today
Rheinland-Pfalz is named in the monitor as one of six Länder without Informatik that is compulsory for all pupils. The others are Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hessen and Sachsen-Anhalt.
There is one exception worth knowing: since the 2021/22 school year, 21 Informatik-Profil-Schulen in the Land teach compulsory Informatik in grade 5. Ask your school whether it is one of them.
From 2028/29
The monitor reports that Informatik becomes a compulsory subject at all schools in Rheinland-Pfalz from the 2028/29 school year, with four lessons a week spread over the years in total.
A child who is eight today will be in about grade 5 when that starts; a child who is eleven will already be in grade 8. For both, the habits of step-by-step thinking are easier to build at home now than to catch up on later.
Computing in a Ludwigshafen school career, as the rules stand in 2026/27
Grades
School
Informatik
1 to 4
Grundschule
No compulsory Informatik lesson
5
Secondary school
Compulsory only at the 21 Informatik-Profil-Schulen
5 to 10
Secondary school
Elective where the school offers it
From 2028/29
All schools
Compulsory, four weekly lessons in total
Sources: Gesellschaft für Informatik, Informatik-Monitor 2026/27, Länder overview and Rheinland-Pfalz page; KMK, Primarbereich, which also lists a 2024 key-points paper on informatics education in primary school. All read 2 November 2026. We are not connected to the Gesellschaft für Informatik, the KMK or the Rheinland-Pfalz ministry.
Rhineland-Palatinate school holidays 2026/27 (KMK)
Holiday
Dates
Herbstferien
5 to 16 October 2026
Weihnachtsferien
23 December 2026 to 8 January 2027
Osterferien
22 March to 2 April 2027
Sommerferien
28 June to 6 August 2027
Source: KMK, Ferienkalender 2026/27, Stand 9 October 2025. Classes do not stop for school holidays; many families use a holiday week to finish a game their child started in term time.
In English
Can a Ludwigshafen child learn coding in English?
Yes. Every class is live and in English only, and young children usually find it easier than their parents expect.
English only, and we say so
Every lesson is in English. Nothing is taught in German, and it is fairer to say so on this page than after a trial. The mentors work from India over a live video link.
Matched to your child
The mentor talks slowly, uses short sentences, shows rather than describes, and gets used to how your child speaks. If a child answers with a German word, the mentor understands and offers the English one.
The screen does the work
A Scratch block that says "move 10 steps" is easy to guess, and most of a lesson is building and trying. Children pick up the handful of words they need within a few weeks.
Because the mentor is the same every week, a shy child gets time to warm up. After a month the mentor knows whether your child likes a challenge straight away, or a few easy wins first.
A real Ludwigshafen project
How rainy is Oggersheim? Sorting 24 years of days into buckets
The Deutscher Wetterdienst measured rain every day at a station in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim from 1978 to 2004. Our older children use those numbers to learn that a chart can hide the answer or show it, depending on how you group the data.
The data
Station 3077, Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim, stood 97 metres above sea level and recorded daily rain in millimetres. Its record is published by the DWD Climate Data Center under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence. We downloaded it on 3 November 2026.
We keep the 24 complete years from 1978 to 2001, which is 8,766 days, in a file called oggersheim_rain.csv. One millimetre of rain is one litre of water on every square metre of ground.
The question
What is a normal day in Oggersheim: dry, a little rain, or a lot? A child sorts every day into a bucket and counts how many fall in each. The surprise is that the first way of sorting gives an answer that is true but useless.
The wettest day in the file is 23 May 1978, with 69.2 millimetres, and an average year brought 562.4 millimetres. Both are our own sums from the file.
Version 1: buckets ten millimetres widePython
import csv
rain = []
with open("oggersheim_rain.csv", encoding="utf-8") as data:
for line in csv.DictReader(data):
rain.append(float(line["rain_mm"]))
print("Days:", len(rain))
def count_buckets(width):
buckets = {}
for mm in rain:
start = int(mm // width) * width
buckets[start] = buckets.get(start, 0) + 1
return buckets
wide = count_buckets(10)
for start in sorted(wide):
print(start, "to", start + 10, "mm:", wide[start], "days")
It prints Days: 8766, then seven buckets from 0 to 10 mm: 8461 days to 60 to 70 mm: 1 days.
Almost every day, 8,461 of 8,766, lands in the first bucket. The chart says "it is nearly always 0 to 10 millimetres", which is true and tells you almost nothing: a dry day and a day of steady rain look the same. The buckets are too wide.
Version 2: buckets that match real daysPython
def name_of(mm):
if mm == 0:
return "dry"
elif mm < 1:
return "a few drops"
elif mm < 5:
return "a rainy day"
elif mm < 15:
return "a wet day"
else:
return "a soaking day"
kinds = {}
for mm in rain:
kinds[name_of(mm)] = kinds.get(name_of(mm), 0) + 1
for kind in ["dry", "a few drops", "a rainy day", "a wet day", "a soaking day"]:
print(kind, kinds[kind], "#" * (kinds[kind] // 200))
Run after Version 1. It prints dry 5114, a few drops 1142, a rainy day 1667, a wet day 716 and a soaking day 127, each with a bar of hash marks.
Now the story is visible: more than half of all days were completely dry, and only 127 days in 24 years, about five a year, were soaking days of 15 millimetres or more. Nothing in the data changed between the two versions. Only the edges of the buckets did.
Oggersheim days by kind of rain, 1978 to 2001 (our calculation)
Kind of day
Rain
Days
Dry
0 mm
5,114
A few drops
under 1 mm
1,142
A rainy day
1 to under 5 mm
1,667
A wet day
5 to under 15 mm
716
A soaking day
15 mm or more
127
Data: Deutscher Wetterdienst, Climate Data Center, daily precipitation, station 3077 Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim, licence CC BY 4.0, downloaded 3 November 2026. The bucket names and edges, the counts and the averages are ours. The station closed at the end of 2004; 2002 and 2004 are incomplete in the file and left out.
Ages 6 to 8, no screen. Look out of the window every day for two weeks and draw a sun, a cloud or a raindrop. Then decide: is "cloud" one bucket, or two?
Ages 8 to 10, Scratch. Make a list of ten rain numbers and three counters called dry, wet and soaking. Move each number into the right counter.
Ages 10 to 12, Python. Run Version 1 with buckets 5 millimetres wide, then 1 millimetre wide. Which width tells the clearest story?
Going further. Change name_of so that "a soaking day" starts at 10 millimetres. Predict the new counts before running it.
Free contests
Which free maths and computing contests can a Ludwigshafen child try?
Two are run through schools all over Germany this school year, and the maths olympiad has its national final in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2027.
Dates published by the organisers
Contest
For
When
Informatik-Biber
Grades 3 to 13
9 to 20 November 2026
Känguru der Mathematik
Grades 3 to 13
8 April 2027
Mathematik-Olympiade, Bundesrunde
Invited teams from grade 8
30 May to 2 June 2027, Kaiserslautern
In the Biber, primary pupils solve nine logic puzzles in 30 minutes, and no coding knowledge is needed. The Känguru gives grades 3 to 6 twenty-four problems in 75 minutes; in 2027 it moves to 8 April because the usual March date falls just before the Easter holidays in almost every Land. Both are entered through the school, so ask the class teacher. Real contest tasks stay with their organisers: the practice puzzles our mentors use are invented by us and marked as ours. BWINF, the Känguru team and the Mathematik-Olympiade have no connection with us.
Times
When are classes for Ludwigshafen children?
After school and at weekends, at a time you choose. The mentor's day in India is later, which is why German afternoons work well.
Sample Ludwigshafen times against the clock in India
Ludwigshafen
India, winter (to 28 March 2027)
India, summer (from 28 March 2027)
15:45
20:15
19:15
16:15
20:45
19:45
Saturday 09:00
13:30
12:30
Sunday 10:00
14:30
13:30
Germany runs on MEZ (UTC+1) in winter and MESZ (UTC+2) in summer, as the Einheitenzeitgesetz sets out; the autumn change came on 25 October 2026 and the spring change follows on 28 March 2027. India does not change its clocks and stays on UTC+5:30, four and a half hours ahead of Ludwigshafen in winter and three and a half in summer. The rows are examples, not fixed batches.
Children in Frankenthal, Speyer, Schifferstadt or across the river in Mannheim join in exactly the same way. When you book, you pick a time in your own clock.
Milestones
What can a Ludwigshafen child do at each stage?
Five steps we use when we put a child into a group and when we write to parents.
Five coding steps for primary children (ours)
Step
Usual age
What it looks like
1. Steps
6 to 7
Put actions in order so a character does what they planned
2. Repeats
7 to 9
Use a loop instead of copying the same block ten times
3. Choices
8 to 10
Make a game react with if and else
4. Typing
9 to 11
Short Python that mostly runs the first time
5. Grouping
10 to 12
Sort data into groups and explain why those groups
For parents
Stage 5 is the rain project. A child who has seen the same data look useless and then useful will question the next chart they see.
We report what your child built and can explain, not how long they sat at the screen.
For children
If one bucket holds nearly everything, your buckets are too big.
Decide the edges first, then count. Change the edges, and count again.
More for children
Nine more courses for Ludwigshafen children
Same format for all of them: live, English, one mentor, class or private.
A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.
by Krish
Fees
Fees for Ludwigshafen families
One monthly payment covers eight live classes. Prices here are euro estimates from the European Central Bank reference rate; the charge runs in US dollars and your bank changes it, so the euro amount on the statement may be a little off.
What parents and students wrote on Google, unchanged.
★★★★★
"The one step solution for my son. Modern Age Coders make learning coding so simple that kids love it. The teachers explain complex concepts clearly with practical exercises and interactive content."
Ria Mukherjee
Parent
★★★★★
"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."
Samriddha Mondal
Student
★★★★★
"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."
Vansh Agarwal
Student
★★★★★
"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."
Sonam Oswal
Parent of Dhairya
★★★★★
"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."
Sonu Goyal
Parent
★★★★★
"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."
Ritu Kedia
Parent
Ludwigshafen parents ask
Coding classes for kids in Ludwigshafen: common questions
Are the classes in German?
No, they are in English, live, every time. A mentor speaks in short, simple sentences, adapts to the way your child talks and shows each step on screen, which lets a seven year old with very little English take part from week one.
Is six too young to start coding?
Not with the right start. Six year olds begin with Scratch, where blocks snap together and there is almost nothing to type or read. Lessons are short and playful, and the free first class shows whether your child is ready.
Do Ludwigshafen schools teach coding?
Mostly not yet. The Gesellschaft für Informatik lists Rheinland-Pfalz among six Länder without Informatik that is compulsory for all, with 21 Informatik-Profil-Schulen teaching it in grade 5. Informatik becomes compulsory at all schools in the Land from 2028/29.
When can my child switch from Scratch to Python?
Usually around 9 or 10, once typing is comfortable and they have used loops and choices in Scratch. The mentor suggests the switch when a child starts to find Scratch too slow.
When are classes in Ludwigshafen time?
Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Most children here take classes in the late afternoon or on a weekend morning.
Can my child enter the Känguru or the Biber?
Yes, if the school takes part, because both are entered through schools. The Informatik-Biber runs from 9 to 20 November 2026 and the Känguru der Mathematik is on 8 April 2027. Ask the class teacher.
Who are the teachers?
Mentors based in India who teach live online, in English. A child keeps one mentor for the whole course, and the time difference is the reason German afternoons are evenings for them.
Is the rain project real Ludwigshafen data?
Yes. It uses the daily rain record of Deutscher Wetterdienst station 3077, Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim, from 1978 to 2001, published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. The buckets and counts are our own.
How many children are in a group?
Fifteen to twenty children of a similar age. With the one-to-one plan your child has the mentor to themselves for two classes a week.
What currency do I pay in?
You see a euro figure here, based on the European Central Bank reference rate, while the card payment itself is in US dollars. The bank does the conversion, so a few cents of difference on the statement is normal. A first class is free of charge.
Expect a little logic game and a Scratch sprite your child moves on their own. From that half hour the mentor can tell how your child approaches a problem and how much English support makes sense, and suggests a matching course and age group.
Our mentors teach from India, online and live, in English only. Questions in English on WhatsApp get the fastest answer.
Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo
A priority demo is a full class of about 45 to 60 minutes. After the class the mentor sends a written skill report and a personal learning roadmap on WhatsApp. If you enrol, the demo fee is adjusted against your first month's fee. Share your demo Order ID with us on WhatsApp and we take it off.
