Four courses, six skills, one portfolio: what kids acually walk away with
Most kids' coding programmes sell topics. Parents don't buy topics — they buy what their child can do in June that they couldn't do in September.
Algorithmics is a STEM education network teaching children aged 6 to 18 in groups of 6 to 12. Four courses carry most of the network. Different tools, different ages - the same six skills underneath.
Algorithmics is a STEM education network teaching children aged 6 to 18 in groups of 6 to 12. Four courses carry most of the network. Different tools, different ages - the same six skills underneath.
The four courses that carry the network
Visual Programming is the first real course, where a child builds playable games and animations in a block-based environment and learns to think in algorithms before typing a line of code.
Game Design has students design, script and publish multiplayer 3D games on a mainstream games platform, where actual players find them and play them.
Artificial Intelligence teaches how generative models work and how they are trained, then puts students to work using them to build a complete interactive product of their own.
Python is a single continuous three-year track that runs from first syntax to desktop and mobile applications, data analysis, machine learning and web development.
The first three have no prerequisites. Python is one track, not a beginner course plus an upsell.
Visual Programming is the first real course, where a child builds playable games and animations in a block-based environment and learns to think in algorithms before typing a line of code.
Game Design has students design, script and publish multiplayer 3D games on a mainstream games platform, where actual players find them and play them.
Artificial Intelligence teaches how generative models work and how they are trained, then puts students to work using them to build a complete interactive product of their own.
Python is a single continuous three-year track that runs from first syntax to desktop and mobile applications, data analysis, machine learning and web development.
The first three have no prerequisites. Python is one track, not a beginner course plus an upsell.
The six skills
1. Cutting a big problem into small ones. The first thing an 8-year-old learns is that anything overwhelming is a stack of things that aren't. Same move at 15, writing a design document before touching a line of code. Same move at 17, breaking a dataset into questions it can answer.
2. Being unbothered by things that don't work. Errors are taught as normal, on purpose, from session one. Build, test, find the fault, fix, go again. By the third course the student is writing test cases for their own game because they expect it to break.
3. Making something a stranger can use. Interfaces, game rules, onboarding, a leaderboard, an obvious next step. Students learn that if the user can't figure it out, the product is wrong - not the user. This is the skill that separates a coder from someone who ships.
4. Directing a machine instead of negotiating with one. In Python that's code. In the AI course it's structured prompting - worked examples, reasoning in steps, supplying context a model doesn't have — applied to maths and logic problems, not just pretty pictures. Both are the same underlying habit: say precisely what you want.
5. Reading the machine's homework. AI students work through how a generative model is actually trained - pick the training examples, train it, generate from it, see how selection shaped the output. Then they learn to spot synthetic video and audio, and to argue about where its use is legitimate. A child who has trained a model is much harder to fool by one.
6. Standing up and defending it. Every course ends in a presentation. Students critique each other's work against criteria, take the feedback, revise, and pitch. By the Python years they're pitching to a room the way a founder would.
1. Cutting a big problem into small ones. The first thing an 8-year-old learns is that anything overwhelming is a stack of things that aren't. Same move at 15, writing a design document before touching a line of code. Same move at 17, breaking a dataset into questions it can answer.
2. Being unbothered by things that don't work. Errors are taught as normal, on purpose, from session one. Build, test, find the fault, fix, go again. By the third course the student is writing test cases for their own game because they expect it to break.
3. Making something a stranger can use. Interfaces, game rules, onboarding, a leaderboard, an obvious next step. Students learn that if the user can't figure it out, the product is wrong - not the user. This is the skill that separates a coder from someone who ships.
4. Directing a machine instead of negotiating with one. In Python that's code. In the AI course it's structured prompting - worked examples, reasoning in steps, supplying context a model doesn't have — applied to maths and logic problems, not just pretty pictures. Both are the same underlying habit: say precisely what you want.
5. Reading the machine's homework. AI students work through how a generative model is actually trained - pick the training examples, train it, generate from it, see how selection shaped the output. Then they learn to spot synthetic video and audio, and to argue about where its use is legitimate. A child who has trained a model is much harder to fool by one.
6. Standing up and defending it. Every course ends in a presentation. Students critique each other's work against criteria, take the feedback, revise, and pitch. By the Python years they're pitching to a room the way a founder would.
What a child builds - and why they care
Nobody's 10-year-old comes home excited about loops. They come home because their friends are asking for the link.
Visual Programming: the game the whole class plays at break. The main character looks like them. There are levels, a score, a way to lose. They bring it in on a tablet and by Thursday there's a queue. Somebody asks for a harder level, and they go home and build one — which is the first time in their life a child has shipped a feature because a user requested it. Also within reach: an animated cartoon they can send to their grandmother, and a chatbot that quizzes classmates before a test.
Game Design: a world their friends log into from home. They publish it. They send a link. That evening four friends are inside a world this child built — its terrain, its buildings, its hidden treasure, its traps. The leaderboard fills up with names they know. They can also make a multiplayer shooter and run an actual tournament in it, or a racing game with a vehicle they modelled themselves. The audience is real, and it changes everything about how hard a child is willing to work on a bug.
AI: a game nobody believes a 13-year-old made. An interactive story with branching choices, art in a consistent style, a soundtrack, sound effects, and characters speaking in voices they generated. It looks like a studio made it. Friends play it and ask who did the artwork. And the one that matters more: three weeks later this child is the one in the family who spots the fake video going round the group chat, and can explain how it was made.
Python: software other people actually use. A revision app they built to cram for their own exams — which their classmates then start asking for. A script that resizes and renames 400 holiday photos in about four seconds, run for a parent who was going to do it by hand. An online quiz the whole class plays at once, on a site they built, backed by a database they designed. A data project answering a question they chose themselves — which streamer, which team, which app - cleaned, analysed and charted properly. A model they trained that predicts an outcome, entered into a public machine-learning competition against adults.
By 17 that's a mobile app, a web application with logins and a database, a 3D game and a trained model. Which is a junior developer's portfolio, assembled at school age.
Nobody's 10-year-old comes home excited about loops. They come home because their friends are asking for the link.
Visual Programming: the game the whole class plays at break. The main character looks like them. There are levels, a score, a way to lose. They bring it in on a tablet and by Thursday there's a queue. Somebody asks for a harder level, and they go home and build one — which is the first time in their life a child has shipped a feature because a user requested it. Also within reach: an animated cartoon they can send to their grandmother, and a chatbot that quizzes classmates before a test.
Game Design: a world their friends log into from home. They publish it. They send a link. That evening four friends are inside a world this child built — its terrain, its buildings, its hidden treasure, its traps. The leaderboard fills up with names they know. They can also make a multiplayer shooter and run an actual tournament in it, or a racing game with a vehicle they modelled themselves. The audience is real, and it changes everything about how hard a child is willing to work on a bug.
AI: a game nobody believes a 13-year-old made. An interactive story with branching choices, art in a consistent style, a soundtrack, sound effects, and characters speaking in voices they generated. It looks like a studio made it. Friends play it and ask who did the artwork. And the one that matters more: three weeks later this child is the one in the family who spots the fake video going round the group chat, and can explain how it was made.
Python: software other people actually use. A revision app they built to cram for their own exams — which their classmates then start asking for. A script that resizes and renames 400 holiday photos in about four seconds, run for a parent who was going to do it by hand. An online quiz the whole class plays at once, on a site they built, backed by a database they designed. A data project answering a question they chose themselves — which streamer, which team, which app - cleaned, analysed and charted properly. A model they trained that predicts an outcome, entered into a public machine-learning competition against adults.
By 17 that's a mobile app, a web application with logins and a database, a 3D game and a trained model. Which is a junior developer's portfolio, assembled at school age.
The tools: what we use, and why they're free
Every tool in every course is free or free at the tier students use.
Why free tools, and not licensed educational software
It keeps software off the partner's P&L. No per-seat licence, no annual renewal, no line item that scales with enrolment. For a franchise unit, that is the difference between a cost that grows with the business and one that doesn't exist.
The student can keep working at home. Free tools run on whatever the family already owns. Practice happens between sessions, parents watch the work happen on the kitchen table, and progress is visible without anyone sending a report card. Licensed classroom software stops at the classroom door.
It lowers the cost of opening a centre. Browser-based and lightweight tools run on modest hardware, which pulls down the equipment budget for a new location.
No vendor holds us hostage. Nothing in the curriculum depends on one company's pricing decisions, roadmap or survival. If a tool declines, it gets swapped - because learning outcomes are written in terms of what the student can do, not which application they opened.
Large communities make teachers easier to hire. Recruiting someone who has used Scratch, Roblox Studio or Python is a very different search from recruiting someone certified in a niche educational product.
Every tool in every course is free or free at the tier students use.
Why free tools, and not licensed educational software
It keeps software off the partner's P&L. No per-seat licence, no annual renewal, no line item that scales with enrolment. For a franchise unit, that is the difference between a cost that grows with the business and one that doesn't exist.
The student can keep working at home. Free tools run on whatever the family already owns. Practice happens between sessions, parents watch the work happen on the kitchen table, and progress is visible without anyone sending a report card. Licensed classroom software stops at the classroom door.
It lowers the cost of opening a centre. Browser-based and lightweight tools run on modest hardware, which pulls down the equipment budget for a new location.
No vendor holds us hostage. Nothing in the curriculum depends on one company's pricing decisions, roadmap or survival. If a tool declines, it gets swapped - because learning outcomes are written in terms of what the student can do, not which application they opened.
Large communities make teachers easier to hire. Recruiting someone who has used Scratch, Roblox Studio or Python is a very different search from recruiting someone certified in a niche educational product.
Why specific tools
They were chosen against four criteria, and each one earns its place on all four.
Low floor, high ceiling. Scratch lets an 8-year-old drag a block in the first ten minutes, and still has room for classes, object families, local and global scope and interface design by the end of the year. A tool that's easy on day one and exhausted by week six is worthless in a year-long course.
A real publishing surface. Roblox isn't a sandbox that mimics a games platform — it is one. Students ship to an audience of actual players, get actual feedback, and learn what happens when someone who isn't your teacher tries to play your game.
Industry-standard, not educational. Python, Pandas, Flask, SQL, HTML and CSS are what working developers use. Nothing has to be unlearned at the transition to professional work, and a portfolio built with them is legible to an employer or a university.
Immediate visible feedback. Turtle, PyGame and Scratch put the consequence of a line of code on the screen instantly. For a child, the gap between cause and effect is the whole game - the shorter it is, the faster they learn to debug.
They were chosen against four criteria, and each one earns its place on all four.
Low floor, high ceiling. Scratch lets an 8-year-old drag a block in the first ten minutes, and still has room for classes, object families, local and global scope and interface design by the end of the year. A tool that's easy on day one and exhausted by week six is worthless in a year-long course.
A real publishing surface. Roblox isn't a sandbox that mimics a games platform — it is one. Students ship to an audience of actual players, get actual feedback, and learn what happens when someone who isn't your teacher tries to play your game.
Industry-standard, not educational. Python, Pandas, Flask, SQL, HTML and CSS are what working developers use. Nothing has to be unlearned at the transition to professional work, and a portfolio built with them is legible to an employer or a university.
Immediate visible feedback. Turtle, PyGame and Scratch put the consequence of a line of code on the screen instantly. For a child, the gap between cause and effect is the whole game - the shorter it is, the faster they learn to debug.
And the portfolio isn't a year-end event
Every module ends in a finished artifact. Not one project in May - something to show every few weeks. Which is exactly why parents renew.
The other half of that: learning outcomes in every Algorithmics course are specified on two tracks, technical and collaborative, at module level. Most programmes claim soft skills in their marketing. Rather fewer write them into the course plan and assess them.
Every module ends in a finished artifact. Not one project in May - something to show every few weeks. Which is exactly why parents renew.
The other half of that: learning outcomes in every Algorithmics course are specified on two tracks, technical and collaborative, at module level. Most programmes claim soft skills in their marketing. Rather fewer write them into the course plan and assess them.
Why schools are adding these courses now
Parents stopped asking whether their child will learn to code. They ask what the child will be able to make. A curriculum organised around artifacts answers that; a curriculum organised around topics doesn't.
Schools have an AI problem and no AI policy. Directors are dealing with students using generative tools they don't understand, staff with no framework for legitimate use, and parents asking what the school is doing about it. A course that teaches how these models are trained, how to spot synthetic media, and where use is and isn't appropriate answers a question these buyers are already being asked.
Creative entry points widen the funnel. Game Design and AI recruit children who would never enrol in a programming course — including a materially higher share of girls. Those students then progress into Python and Unity. A line-up of coding courses only reaches families who already think their child is technical.
Multi-year tracks are the only durable unit economics here. Acquisition cost is the same whether a student stays one year or five. A three-year Python track and a ladder running from 6 to 18 are the difference between reselling your business every September and compounding it.
Short variants are a commercial instrument. A 20-session version runs as a term-length taster or summer intensive and converts into full-year enrolment — which shortens the path to a first cohort for a new centre.
Parents stopped asking whether their child will learn to code. They ask what the child will be able to make. A curriculum organised around artifacts answers that; a curriculum organised around topics doesn't.
Schools have an AI problem and no AI policy. Directors are dealing with students using generative tools they don't understand, staff with no framework for legitimate use, and parents asking what the school is doing about it. A course that teaches how these models are trained, how to spot synthetic media, and where use is and isn't appropriate answers a question these buyers are already being asked.
Creative entry points widen the funnel. Game Design and AI recruit children who would never enrol in a programming course — including a materially higher share of girls. Those students then progress into Python and Unity. A line-up of coding courses only reaches families who already think their child is technical.
Multi-year tracks are the only durable unit economics here. Acquisition cost is the same whether a student stays one year or five. A three-year Python track and a ladder running from 6 to 18 are the difference between reselling your business every September and compounding it.
Short variants are a commercial instrument. A 20-session version runs as a term-length taster or summer intensive and converts into full-year enrolment — which shortens the path to a first cohort for a new centre.
What a partner receives
- Course plans with module-level outcomes on both tracks, for every course and every length variant
- Minute-by-minute teaching guides for every lesson, keeping teacher preparation under 30 minutes — so delivery quality doesn't depend on hiring senior engineers
- The learning platform: task banks, automated checking, per-student progress tracking
- Length variants (20, 24, 28, 32, 36 sessions) so a course fits an existing academic calendar without redesign
- Teacher recruitment criteria, onboarding and certification
- Sales, marketing and operational playbooks used across the network
- Curriculum updates as courses are revised and the tool layer is refreshed
Quick answers
Which course should a school launch first? Whichever matches the age profile already in the building. Starting from zero, most partners open with Game Design and the AI course — easiest to sell to parents.
Do teachers need to be developers? No. Every lesson ships with a minute-by-minute teaching guide; preparation is under 30 minutes. Teachers are certified before they teach.
Online or in-person? Both, or blended — same platform, same teaching guides.
Does a partner pay for software licences? No. Every tool used by students is free — Scratch, Roblox Studio, Python and its libraries, and free tiers of the services used in the AI course. Software is not a line item in a partner's costs.
Why free tools instead of licensed educational software? Four reasons: no per-seat cost that scales with enrolment, students can keep working at home on any machine, lower equipment budget when opening a centre, and no dependency on a single vendor's pricing or survival. The tools are also industry-standard rather than educational, so nothing has to be unlearned later.
Which course should a school launch first? Whichever matches the age profile already in the building. Starting from zero, most partners open with Game Design and the AI course — easiest to sell to parents.
Do teachers need to be developers? No. Every lesson ships with a minute-by-minute teaching guide; preparation is under 30 minutes. Teachers are certified before they teach.
Online or in-person? Both, or blended — same platform, same teaching guides.
Does a partner pay for software licences? No. Every tool used by students is free — Scratch, Roblox Studio, Python and its libraries, and free tiers of the services used in the AI course. Software is not a line item in a partner's costs.
Why free tools instead of licensed educational software? Four reasons: no per-seat cost that scales with enrolment, students can keep working at home on any machine, lower equipment budget when opening a centre, and no dependency on a single vendor's pricing or survival. The tools are also industry-standard rather than educational, so nothing has to be unlearned later.
Updated: August 5, 2026
Want to bring Algorithmics to your region or partner with us to expand tech education for children? Let's get in touch!
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Contacts
Address: Smart Desk 258-1, The Offices 3 - One Central,
World Trade Centre Dubai, UAE
Contact number: +19176282245 (WhatsApp only)
Email adress: infofranchise@alg.team
World Trade Centre Dubai, UAE
Contact number: +19176282245 (WhatsApp only)
Email adress: infofranchise@alg.team
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