Coding in plain English: a guide for parents
You don't need to know how to code to help your child. Coding at school is mostly about clear thinking: giving precise instructions, spotting patterns and fixing mistakes. Schools use different apps and their own names for things, but the ideas underneath are the same.
What children learn, and when
🐣 Ages 4 to 7 (Reception to Year 2)
Giving clear instructions in the right order, predicting what will happen, and fixing mistakes. Often with floor robots, arrow cards or simple block apps where you press buttons to move a character.
🔁 Ages 7 to 9 (Years 3 and 4)
Making things repeat (loops), making things happen when something else happens (events, like “when the character is clicked”), timers, and the first “if” decisions. Programs start to have a goal, like a simple game.
🧩 Ages 9 to 11 (Years 5 and 6)
Variables (keeping score or counting), if/else, getting input from the user, breaking a big problem into small parts, simulations, and functions. Some typed code, such as drawing with a turtle.
🐍 Ages 11 to 14 (Key Stage 3)
A typed programming language, usually Python, alongside blocks. How computers store data in binary, logic (AND, OR, NOT), and searching and sorting.
🎓 Ages 14 to 16 (GCSE Computer Science)
Designing, writing and testing longer programs, standard algorithms, data structures like lists, networks, and cyber security. Not every school offers GCSE Computer Science, but all teach digital skills.
Coding words, explained
- 📝 Algorithm
A set of step-by-step instructions to do a job.
In real life: A recipe, or the steps for brushing your teeth.
Try at home: Ask your child to give you instructions to make a sandwich, then follow them exactly. “Put the butter on the bread”, so you put the whole tub on the loaf!
- 🔢 Sequence
Doing the steps in the right order.
In real life: Socks before shoes, not shoes before socks.
Try at home: Muddle up the steps of getting dressed and ask them to put them in order.
- 🐞 Debug
Finding and fixing mistakes (bugs) in instructions.
In real life: The cake didn’t rise: which step went wrong?
Try at home: Give one wrong instruction on purpose and let them spot it. Praise the fixing.
- 🔮 Predict
Saying what you think will happen before you run the program.
In real life: Guessing where a ball will roll.
Try at home: Before pressing Run in the Code Lab, ask: “Where will Sam end up?”
- 🔁 Loop
Repeating some steps a number of times, or until something happens. Also called repetition.
In real life: “Stir 10 times”, or “keep walking until you reach the door”.
Try at home: Make up a dance with a loop: “Repeat 4 times: clap, jump, spin.”
- 👆 Event
Something that starts code running, like a click, a key press or a timer.
In real life: “When the doorbell rings, open the door.”
Try at home: Play “When I clap, you jump. When I whistle, you sit.”
- 🔀 Selection
Making a choice with if, then and else.
In real life: “If it’s raining, take a coat, otherwise take sunglasses.”
Try at home: Play an if-then game on a walk: “If we see a red car, hop. Otherwise, walk.”
- 📦 Variable
A named box that holds a value which can change, like a score or lives left.
In real life: The score on a scoreboard.
Try at home: Keep score in a board game on paper. That number changing is a variable.
- 🧩 Function
A named set of steps you can reuse. Sometimes called a procedure.
In real life: A recipe step that says “make the sauce” instead of listing every step again.
Try at home: Invent a “tidy-up move” together, then just say its name to do all the steps.
- 🪓 Decomposition
Breaking a big problem into smaller parts.
In real life: Planning a party: food, games, invitations.
Try at home: Pick a big job, like packing for a holiday, and split it into small lists.
- ⌨️ Input and output
Input is what goes into a program (typing, clicking, sensors). Output is what comes out (screen, sound, movement).
In real life: A cash machine: you put in your card (input) and get money (output).
Try at home: Spot inputs and outputs on things at home: the microwave, the TV remote, a game console.
- ✅ Boolean
A value that’s either true or false, and logic like AND, OR and NOT.
In real life: “You can go out if your homework is done AND your room is tidy.”
Try at home: Play true-or-false questions, then combine them with AND and OR.
- 🗺️ Abstraction
Hiding unnecessary detail to focus on what matters.
In real life: A tube map leaves out streets and distances, but shows what you need.
Try at home: Draw a simple map of your route to school with only the important bits.
Five ways to help, no coding needed
- Ask “what will happen?” before they run anything.
- Celebrate bugs, and ask “where did it go wrong?” instead of fixing it for them.
- Be the robot: let them program you with arrows across the room.
- Spot algorithms and loops in daily life: recipes, routines, traffic lights.
- Ask them to teach you.