Australia · Ages 6 to 67 · Weekly or intensive

Coding classes vs coding camps

School holidays bring a wave of coding camps: a week of games, robots and animation, often finishing with a showcase for parents. Weekly classes are quieter, an hour or two a week through the term. Families ask us which is better, and the honest answer is that they do different jobs. This page compares the two formats, uses a simple forgetting-curve model to show why spreading practice out tends to make skills stick, and suggests ways to combine a camp with weekly lessons.

Book the free first class Book a priority demo Why spacing matters Ask on WhatsApp

Live teaching since 2020 · 10,000+ students · weekly lessons with one regular teacher

In short

A coding camp packs many hours into a few holiday days, which is great for trying coding and finishing one project; weekly classes spread the same hours over a term, which tends to help skills stick. In our toy forgetting-curve model, ten hours as a five-day camp left 7.8% recall a month later, while the same ten hours spread weekly left 82.9%. Many families combine the two.

Weekly courses

Three courses taught week by week

Each of these builds skills steadily across terms, with the same teacher.

Scratch Coding for Kids course thumbnail

CVCA / 01

Scratch, term after term

Ages 6 to 12. Games that grow more ambitious each week.

Open the syllabus →
Game Development for Kids course thumbnail

CVCA / 02

Game development for kids

Ages 8 to 12. Scratch, then Roblox and Minecraft worlds.

Open the syllabus →
Python for Teens course thumbnail

CVCA / 03

Python for teenagers

Ages 13 to 18. Skills that build on each other.

Open the syllabus →

Side by side

What camps and weekly classes each do well

Neither format is a lesser version of the other. They suit different goals.

Holiday coding camps and weekly coding classes compared
FactorHoliday campWeekly class
HoursMany hours in a few daysAn hour or two a week
Good forTrying coding, finishing one projectBuilding skills that carry forward
MomentumIntense, then a long pauseSteady, with practice between lessons
TeacherOften someone new each campUsually the same teacher all term
Social sideA burst of new friendsA regular group across months
Fit with schoolHolidays onlyAlongside school, through the term
What a child keepsA finished project and memoriesSkills and a growing portfolio

Where camps shine

A camp is a low-risk way to find out whether a child enjoys coding at all. Five days of games and making things is often enough to tell.

Camps also suit one finished product: an animation, a game or a website built from start to end in a week, which is satisfying and easy to show off.

Where weekly classes shine

Skills such as loops, variables and debugging take repeated practice over weeks. A weekly rhythm brings each idea back again and again, just as it is starting to fade.

A teacher who sees a child every week notices what they keep getting wrong, and plans the next lesson around it.

Spacing practice

Massed practice versus spaced practice: a model you can run

Psychologists call cramming massed practice, and spreading the same practice out spaced or distributed practice. A 2006 review in Psychological Bulletin by Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted and Rohrer is titled "Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis". We did not read the paper itself, so instead of quoting its results, here is a small model that shows the idea.

Recall 28 days after the last session, ten one-hour sessions (our toy model)
ScheduleSpread overBoost k = 1Boost k = 2Boost k = 3
Camp: two hours a day for five days4 days0.1%2.4%7.8%
Twice a week for five weeks31 days30.4%57.8%70.2%
Once a week for ten weeks63 days50.7%74.4%82.9%

How the model works

Each skill has a memory strength S, counted in days. After t days without practice, the chance of recalling it is e to the power of minus t divided by S, the shape usually called a forgetting curve.

When the learner practises again after a gap, S grows by a factor of 1 + k × (how much had been forgotten). A review straight after the last one adds little, because nothing has been forgotten yet; a review after a week, when the memory has faded a bit, adds a lot.

What the numbers show

With the same ten hours, the camp leaves a weak memory a month later, while the weekly schedule leaves a strong one, for every boost value we tried. The ordering never changes, even though the exact percentages do.

The model is ours and deliberately simple: real children practise between sessions, enjoy some topics more than others and revisit ideas at school. Treat the percentages as an illustration, not a prediction.

Learners can build this model in Python with a loop over the gaps between sessions and math.exp. It is a good first taste of simulation: change one number, the boost k, and see whether the conclusion survives. Ours does, which is why we teach in weekly lessons and keep holidays for projects.

Source: Crossref metadata for Cepeda et al. (2006), Psychological Bulletin 132(3), 354 to 380, read 7 October 2026 (title, authors, journal and pages only). The recall table is our own toy model, labelled as such.

Holiday dates

How long Australian school holidays actually are

Camps happen in the gaps between terms. Using Victoria's published dates, here is how long those gaps are in 2027.

Breaks between Victorian school terms, 2027 into 2028 (Victorian Government dates; day counts are our own)
BreakFromToLength
After Term 1Friday 26 MarchSunday 11 April17 days, 11 weekdays
After Term 2Saturday 26 JuneSunday 11 July16 days, 10 weekdays
After Term 3Saturday 18 SeptemberSunday 3 October16 days, 10 weekdays
SummerSaturday 18 DecemberWednesday 26 January 202840 days, 28 weekdays

What the gaps mean for skills

A weekly learner who stops for the whole summer break goes 40 days without coding. In the forgetting model, that is a long stretch for a new skill, which is why the first lesson back often starts with a quick revision game.

The shorter breaks, around two weeks each, are a natural place for a camp or a small holiday project.

Other states

Every state and territory sets its own term dates, and they differ by days to a week. Our school holiday coding course page lists the dates we could verify for each state.

Weekday counts here include any public holidays that fall inside the breaks, such as Easter Monday after Term 1.

Source: Victorian Government, school term dates and holidays, read 7 October 2026. Break lengths are our own count from those dates.

Young children

How many hours suit younger children?

Camps sometimes run full school-day hours. For young children, that is a lot of screen and concentration time.

What the tutoring body says

The Australian Tutoring Association, writing about tutoring for very young children, says: "One to three hours per week in a hands-on playgroup style would not be considered too much for very young children. However more than this would not generally be recommended except in exceptional circumstances (remediation, for example)."

That guidance concerns pre-school-aged children, not school-aged coders, but the principle carries over: little and often suits young learners better than long blocks.

What we do

Our youngest learners, from age six, have one-hour lessons with a break built in, and plenty of unplugged activity away from the screen.

If a young child does a holiday camp, a half-day program usually suits better than a full day, and the child should be able to tell you what they made each day.

Source: Australian Tutoring Association, when to start tutoring, read 7 October 2026.

Combining

Using a camp and weekly classes together

The two formats pair up nicely. Here are combinations we see working for families.

Ways to combine camps and weekly coding classes
PlanHow it worksSuits
Camp first, then weeklyA holiday camp to test interest, then weekly lessons from the next termChildren new to coding
Weekly, with holiday projectsWeekly lessons in term, a small project to finish over each breakChildren already coding regularly
Weekly, plus one themed campWeekly skills all year, one camp on a new topic such as robotics or animationChildren who like variety
Holiday intensive for a goalExtra one-to-one lessons in a break before a competition or school projectTeenagers with a deadline

Whatever the plan, two habits help most: a few minutes of coding during long breaks, and a teacher who checks at the start of term what has faded. If cost is part of the decision, see what coding classes cost in Australia, and for the format question, online versus in-person classes.

Across a year

A year of weekly coding, term by term

How skills build when practice is spread across the school year.

A typical first year of weekly lessons
TermFocus
Term 1First programs, events and loops, one small game
Term 2Variables, scores and conditions, a bigger game
Term 3Lists, debugging habits, a project of the learner's choice
Term 4A showcase project, presented to the group

For children

Each term revisits the last one's ideas inside a new project, so nothing is learned once and dropped.

Holiday breaks become project time rather than a full stop.

For teens and adults

Weekly lessons fit around school, sport and work, with steady progress through the year.

Short intensives can be added before a deadline.

The catalogue

Nine courses taught weekly

Every course runs as weekly live lessons through the year.

I

Children

Ages 6 to 12

CVCA / CHD / 02

Creative coding and animation

Art and motion in code.

Open the syllabus

CVCA / CHD / 03

Python and AI for kids

Typed code, small AI projects.

Open the syllabus
II

Teenagers

Ages 13 to 18

CVCA / TEN / 03

Competitive programming

Problem solving that compounds.

Open the syllabus
III

Adults

18 and over

CVCA / ADL / 02

Artificial intelligence

Models, data and evaluation.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Weekly lessons that build on each other

Each lesson starts with what the learner remembers from the last.

After school

Weekday afternoons in your state.

Evenings

For teens and adults.

Weekends

Saturday and Sunday slots.

Warm-up recall

A two-minute challenge on last week's idea.

Same teacher

Someone who knows what fades for your child.

Projects that grow

Each term builds on the last.

Holiday projects

Optional work to keep skills warm.

Live, online

No travel, any state.

Small groups

Five to ten, or one to one.

Student work

Projects built week by week

Learner projects that grew over several terms of weekly lessons. More on the student labs page.

NutriLife AI nutrition coach project screenshot

AI and ML

NutriLife

An AI nutrition coach that reads what you eat and works you toward a target.

by Bhavya · Open it

Misti AI chatbot for maths and coding screenshot

AI and ML

Misti

A chatbot that answers mathematics and programming questions, built and deployed by a student.

by Harshit · Open it

GuardianX AI internet safety assistant screenshot

AI and ML

GuardianX

An assistant that helps a young person recognise unsafe situations online.

by Vivaan · Open it

SkyCast weather forecast application screenshot

Web app

SkyCast

A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.

by Krish

Fees

Fees

Weekly lessons outside India are billed monthly in US dollars, one rate in every country. No joining fee, no term contract, and you can pause over a long holiday or stop after any month.

Free first class

USD 0

no card required

  • A free first lesson
  • A suggested weekly plan
  • No card details
Book it

Group batch

USD 100

a month, billed in US dollars

  • Fifteen to twenty learners
  • One regular teacher
  • Twice a week
  • Monthly
Start here

One to one

USD 150

a month, billed in US dollars

  • A teacher to yourself
  • Your own pace
  • Holiday intensives possible
Enquire

What families say

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews

What families wrote on Google, quoted word for word.

★★★★★

"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

Questions from families

Coding classes or coding camps: common questions

What is the difference between a coding camp and a coding class?

A camp packs many hours of coding into a few days, usually in the school holidays; a class runs an hour or two a week through the term. Camps suit trying coding and finishing a project; classes suit building lasting skills.

What is massed practice?

Massed practice means doing a lot of practice in one block, such as a week of all-day sessions. Spaced or distributed practice spreads the same amount of practice out over a longer period.

What is a forgetting curve?

A forgetting curve describes how recall of something learned fades over time without practice. Our page models it with an exponential curve and shows how spaced reviews slow the fade.

Are coding camps worth it?

Yes, for trying coding, meeting other young coders and finishing one project. For skills that last, follow a camp with regular weekly practice.

Do skills from a camp fade?

Often, unless they are used again. In our toy model, ten hours as a five-day camp left far less recall a month later than the same ten hours spread over ten weeks.

How long are Australian school holidays?

In Victoria in 2027, the breaks between terms are 16 or 17 days, and the summer break from 18 December 2027 to 26 January 2028 is 40 days. Other states differ by a few days.

How many hours of coding suit a young child?

Short, regular sessions suit young children most. The Australian Tutoring Association suggests one to three hours a week for very young children in a hands-on style.

Can we combine a camp with weekly lessons?

Yes. Many families use a camp to test interest, then start weekly lessons, or keep weekly lessons and add one themed camp a year.

Do you run lessons in the holidays?

Weekly lessons can continue through the holidays, or pause, as the family prefers. Learners can also take a small holiday project to finish between terms.

How much do weekly lessons cost?

The first lesson is free. Weekly lessons are then billed monthly with no joining fee and no term lock-in, as shown in the fees section.

Elsewhere on this site

Related pages

More for Australian families planning coding across the year.

Coding classes in Australia

Our main page for Australian families.

School holiday coding course

Holiday dates by state.

Online or in person

Comparing the two formats.

What coding classes cost

Per lesson and per term.

Free coding classes

What free options include.

How we teach

Our method in detail.

Start here

Book a free first lesson

Tell us the learner's age and what they enjoy. After the first lesson, the teacher suggests a weekly plan, with or without holiday projects.

Want more detail first? Read how a lesson runs or look through our courses.

WhatsApp us · +91 91233 66161 · connect@modernagecoders.com

The fastest way to reach us from Australia is WhatsApp; replies come from our team in India on a +91 number, and there is no Australian office.

Your first lesson is free and needs no card.

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.

Book a priority demo

Keep exploring Modern Age Coders

More comparisons

Learn more

Free resources

From the blog

Start here

Free classPriority demoCall us