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Coding classes in the City of London

What are the best coding classes in the City of London?

The City of London is the Square Mile of the Barbican, Smithfield, Aldgate, Bank, Temple, Blackfriars and Liverpool Street, home to only 8,583 residents at the 2021 Census, the fewest of any London local authority, yet to 86 Grade I buildings including St Paul's Cathedral and the Monument. A class worth joining lets a learner discover a law of nature with code rather than read it in a book, and this page does that with arches: hang a virtual chain, let the computer find the shape of least energy, and turn it upside down to get the ideal arch. Teaching happens live on video from India, for anyone aged 6 to 67, one to one or in a group of five to ten learners at the same stage. Lesson one is free; from then on, group places cost USD 100 a month and private lessons USD 150 a month.

Historic England's list entry for St Paul's Cathedral records a rebuilding by Sir Christopher Wren between 1675 and 1710, in Portland stone, with a great central dome, after the medieval cathedral burnt in the Great Fire. Nearby stands Wren's Monument to that fire, built between 1671 and 1677. Buildings like these raise a question every engineer faces: what shape should an arch or a dome be, so that it carries its own weight without bending? There is a beautifully simple answer, and learners find it themselves. Hang a chain between two points and it settles into a curve where every link pulls purely along the chain. Flip that curve upside down and every stone would push purely along the arch. Our learners let a computer hang a chain of 60 links, compare the result with the curves they know, and see which one nature chose.

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Facts last verified 26 September 2026. Teaching is online; no City of London branch is claimed.

Course picks for the City

Courses City learners begin with

Picture a Year 3 child in the Barbican who builds towers of blocks until they topple, a Year 10 pupil at a City school fascinated by old buildings, a Year 13 student heading for architecture or engineering, and an office worker near Bank who walks past St Paul's every day and wonders how it stands up. Each can begin with a free lesson.

Scratch Coding for Kids course thumbnail
Ages 6 to 10

Scratch Coding for Kids

A Scratch chain of beads that swings and settles, and a first look at shapes that gravity makes.

See the syllabus
 Python and AI for Kids course thumbnail
Ages 9 to 12

Python and AI for Kids

First Python with curves: plot a parabola, then a hanging rope, and compare them on the same chart.

See the syllabus
 Python for Teens course thumbnail
Ages 13 to 18

Python for Teens

Python for Key Stages 3 to 5, including the energy-minimising chain and catenary fit on this page.

See the syllabus
 Data and AI Analytics for Non-Programmers (Excel, Sheets, Power BI) course thumbnail
Adults

Data and AI Analytics for Non-Programmers (Excel, Sheets, Power BI)

For adults who enjoy architecture and engineering and want to see the maths behind the shapes.

See the syllabus

Browse the course atlas for more than one hundred options and use the coding roadmap to check prerequisites.

The four we are known for

Python, AI, vibe coding and agentic coding

These run underneath everything above. Every one is live and online, placed by ability rather than by age, and the first class is free.

Vibe Coding for Teens course thumbnail
Vibe codingAges 13 to 17

Vibe Coding for Teens

Python, web and AI projects where the learner still owns the thinking.

See the syllabus
 Python Automation Course course thumbnail
Python and AICollege and adult

Python Automation Course

Automate the work you already do, then let AI carry part of it.

See the syllabus
 AI and Machine Learning for Teens course thumbnail
AI and MLAges 14 to 18

AI and Machine Learning for Teens

Train a model, read what it learned, and be able to say why it is wrong.

See the syllabus
 Codex & Claude Code course thumbnail
Agentic codingProfessionals

Codex & Claude Code

Run AI coding agents on real work without losing control of the codebase.

See the syllabus
The Square Mile in figures

8,583 residents and 613 listed buildings

Each number here is the named organisation's own, or our count of its open data.

The City of London, by the numbers
MeasureFigureWhere it comes from
Residents at the 2021 Census8,583, the fewest of London's 33 local authoritiesONS table TS001
Heritage List entries we counted inside the City613: 86 Grade I, 83 Grade II*, 444 Grade IIHistoric England data, 26 September 2026
St Paul's Cathedral built1675 to 1710, by Sir Christopher WrenHistoric England list entry 1079157
Lines at BankCentral, Northern and Waterloo & City on the Underground, plus the DLRTfL open data, checked 26 September 2026

Wren's City

St Paul's Cathedral and the Monument are both Grade I, as are many City churches such as St Mary le Bow, St Bride and St Mary Woolnoth.

Halls and institutions

The Guildhall, Mansion House, the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England building are all listed at Grade I.

Temple and Smithfield

Middle Temple Hall, Temple Church, St Bartholomew the Great and the gatehouse of St Bartholomew's Hospital complete a remarkable Grade I list.

The question

Which curve carries its own weight?

A hanging chain cannot push; each link can only pull. Whatever shape it settles into must carry its weight in pure pulling, or tension.

Hang it

Pin a chain at two points and let go. It settles into a smooth curve that sags in the middle.

Flip it

Turn that curve upside down and the pulls become pushes. An arch built to that shape carries its weight in pure compression, which stone handles well.

Name it

The curve is called a catenary. It looks like a parabola, but it is not one, and the project shows exactly how different they are.

We make no claim about the exact shape of St Paul's dome or any particular City arch; the list entries do not describe their geometry. The project uses the City's buildings as the question, and physics and code to find the answer. We looked for a list of the City's lending libraries, but the pages we tried returned "not found", so none are named here.

Signature project

Let a computer hang a chain

Learners describe a chain as 60 equal links and ask the computer for the position of lowest total energy, with every link kept exactly the same length.

1. Energy

A chain settles where its total gravitational energy is as small as possible: the lower the links, the lower the energy.

2. Constraints

Every link must keep its length, and the ends must stay pinned. An optimiser searches for the lowest-energy shape that obeys those rules.

3. Compare

Fit the exact catenary formula and the closest parabola to the chain the computer found, and measure how far each misses.

A 3 metre chain pinned at points 2 metres apart, computed 26 September 2026
CurveLargest miss from the chainTypical miss
Catenary formula0.18 mm0.11 mm
Closest parabola35 mm25 mm
Sag at the middlechain 1.0055 mcatenary 1.0053 m

The catenary matches the computed chain to within a fifth of a millimetre over a two-metre span; the closest parabola misses by up to three and a half centimetres, about two hundred times worse. Yet when the chain hangs only slightly, 2.1 metres of chain on the same pins, the parabola comes within 1.3 millimetres, which is why the two are so easily confused. The flip side shows why the shape matters for building: a semicircular arch of the same height strays far from the ideal curve, by about a fifth of the half-span near its base.

Why do this when an AI can state the answer?

Ask an AI what shape a hanging chain makes and it will say "a catenary". A learner who has made a computer find that shape from nothing but energy and constraints, then measured how far a parabola misses, has seen physics emerge from a calculation. That skill, turning a principle into a program and testing the result, is how engineers and scientists work with or without AI.

The wider idea

Nature as an optimiser

Many shapes in the physical world are the answer to a "least energy" question. Code lets learners ask such questions directly.

Minimise

Soap films, hanging cables and settling structures all find low-energy shapes. Writing the energy down is the first step.

Respect the rules

Constraints, like fixed link lengths and pinned ends, turn a simple minimum into a real engineering problem.

Check the answer

A good program is tested against a known exact solution, as the chain is tested against the catenary formula here.

GCSE maths and physics students can follow energy, curves and the idea of fitting a curve to points; A-level students can meet the hyperbolic cosine, constrained optimisation and why the catenary satisfies the equilibrium of forces. The building details come from Historic England; the chain, fits and comparisons are our own, computed on 26 September 2026. Historic England, the City of London Corporation, TfL and the ONS have no connection with Modern Age Coders.

Getting around

Bank station, and a desk at home

The City is criss-crossed by Tube, DLR and rail lines. Our lessons need none of them.

Bank

TfL's open data lists the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines at Bank Underground station, with the DLR alongside.

Barbican to Aldgate

Families in the Barbican estate and near Aldgate can join the same class without stepping outside.

Small and steady

The City has few residents, so our classes gather learners from everywhere: five to ten at one stage, two evenings a week.

The City among London's authorities

The City of London sits alongside London's 32 boroughs. The London page now links a page for every one of them, including Westminster to the west and Tower Hamlets to the east.

Learning ladder

From stacking blocks to constrained optimisation

We set each learner's starting point from what they show in the free lesson, not from their year group alone.

Ages 6 to 10

Shapes and gravity

Children animate swinging chains and towers in Scratch and see which shapes stay up.

Scratch Coding for KidsCoding for Kids
Ages 10 to 13

Plotting curves

Python that plots parabolas and other curves and compares them point by point.

Python and AI for KidsMaths Through Coding
Ages 13 to 18

Energy and fitting

Energy minimisation with constraints and exact-solution checks, strong preparation for physics, engineering and maths.

Python for TeensFull Stack Web Development for Teens
Ages 18 to 67

Engineering intuition

Adults learn to read the shapes of structures around them through the maths that governs them.

Data and AI Analytics for Non-Programmers (Excel, Sheets, Power BI)Python Automation Course
Coding and AI

AI can name the curve. Why should a City learner derive it?

Because knowing the name is not the same as knowing why, and why is what builds judgement.

AI tools answer physics questions fluently. What they cannot give is the experience of setting up a problem from first principles, energy and constraints, and watching a computer arrive at a shape that matches an exact formula to a fifth of a millimetre. A learner who has done that understands optimisation, the idea at the heart of both engineering design and machine learning, where models are trained by minimising an error just as the chain minimises its energy.

That link is worth stressing: every AI model is found by an optimiser searching for a low point. Learners who have seen an optimiser find a catenary have seen, in miniature, how AI itself is made.

The City has been rebuilt in stone more than once. A learner here who can find the ideal arch with code has joined a very old conversation between builders and mathematicians. The longer argument is in why teenagers should still learn to code in 2026.

Delivery

Temple to Liverpool Street, taught live

For City families, lessons happen at home, whatever the office hours around them.

A screen at home

A laptop or desktop, a headset and broadband that handles video are all that is required.

Key Stages in England

Progress reports use English Key Stages, from the start of primary to sixth form, with GCSE and A level where they apply. Lessons are in English.

Nothing to pay first

The opening lesson is free and properly taught, ending with the teacher's advice on level and course; no card is taken.

Classmates from everywhere

With so few City residents, each class of five to ten at one stage is drawn from across the UK and beyond.

Two evening sessions

Most classes meet on two evenings a week and break for holidays and exams by agreement.

London time

Teachers work from India; every time we send is already in UK time.

The smallest authority, a full class

Fewer than 9,000 people live in the City, so our classes are always drawn far more widely: five learners at the same stage and hour are found across the country.

Fees

Fees for City families

A free first lesson, then one monthly fee, the same as everywhere else in London.

First classUSD 0

A complete first lesson with a teacher, free, closing with a recommended level, course and time.

Group tuitionUSD 100

About eight live lessons a month, in a class of five to ten at one stage.

Private tuitionUSD 150

About eight live lessons a month, one to one.

Families in the City are billed in US dollars, as every family outside India is, and the site shows no pound prices. Billing starts only after the free lesson, once a course and a regular evening are agreed. The pricing page explains pauses, missed lessons and changes between class and private teaching.

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Reviews

Six Google reviews from families we teach

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews. These are real reviews, reproduced as written.

★★★★★

"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

Free placement class

Request a free lesson

An age or school year and one interest is all we need to prepare. Lesson one might be a Scratch swinging chain, a Python curve plotter, or the arch project on this page.

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FAQ

City of London questions

About the Square Mile, the arch project and our lessons.

How many people live in the City of London?

The 2021 Census counted 8,583 usual residents, the smallest population of London's 33 local authorities, in ONS table TS001.

When was St Paul's Cathedral built?

Historic England's list entry dates Sir Christopher Wren's cathedral to 1675 to 1710, a rebuilding of the medieval cathedral burnt in the Great Fire.

What is a catenary?

The curve a chain or cable makes when it hangs freely between two points under its own weight. Its formula uses the hyperbolic cosine, and upside down it gives an arch that carries its own weight in pure compression.

Is a catenary the same as a parabola?

No. For a 3 metre chain between pins 2 metres apart, the closest parabola misses the true shape by up to 35 mm, while the catenary formula matches our computed chain to within 0.18 mm. For shallow chains the two look almost identical.

Is St Paul's dome a catenary?

We do not claim that. Historic England's list entry does not describe the dome's geometry, and the project uses the cathedral only as the question that starts the investigation.

When would City lessons happen?

After the free lesson we suggest a class at the right level with a free place and its regular evening, given in UK time; the teacher is in India.

What does a learner need?

A computer with sound and a reliable connection. The arch project needs Python with its standard scientific libraries.

Is there a Modern Age Coders centre in the City of London?

No. There is no City of London centre and no premises anywhere in the UK, because every lesson is live online. A learner needs a computer with sound and a stable connection, and our phone number is Indian.

What do coding classes in the City of London cost?

The first lesson is free. After that, a group place costs USD 100 a month for two live lessons a week, about eight a month, with five to ten learners, and one-to-one teaching on the same timetable costs USD 150 a month. Nothing is charged until the course, format and time are agreed.

How are the groups made up?

By level, pace and goals rather than by age or neighbourhood, with five to ten learners at one stage. Where no group fits the learner's week, one-to-one lessons are offered.

Explore London

The rest of London

Every borough now has its own page on our London page, from Southwark across the river to Islington to the north. Optimisation leads directly into our AI and machine learning classes in London, where models are trained by the same search for a minimum, and the UK coding page sets out school stages across the four nations.

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Free City of London classCall +91 91233 66161

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