Earlier this year we wrote about Tynker, an iPad app teaching children their first programming skills. It was a free download with some lessons included, then parents could pay for extra modules.

Now the developer has released a new version, Tynker Premium, which includes all four of its sections for a single upfront price: £2.99. That’s good news for schools who are unable to get apps that use in-app purchases (i.e. many of them).

In other respects, it’s the same app we were so impressed by in March: a collection of 200 levels with puzzles that children solve by dragging and dropping visual blocks of code.

The four sections are Puppy Adventure, Lost In Space, Sketch Racer and Dragon Journey: the first is for beginners, while the next three are for learning and practising intermediate coding skills.

They’re varied in terms of their content though: Puppy Adventure involves guiding a puppy home by giving him commands, while Lost In Space takes a similar approach with an astronaut.

Sketch Racer is more about drawing geometric shapes with a virtual turtle, and the recently-added Dragon Journey features, yes, a dragon wandering through a forest.

It’s accessible, friendly and a great introduction to programming – a good time, given that this’ll be part of the school curriculum here in the UK from September.

Tynker (the app) is based on Tynker (the website) which has been used by more than 6m children around the world since its launch last year, as well as more than 8,000 schools.

As we said, we suspect schools will be the big audience for this new Premium edition, although it should also suit parents who’d rather pay once upfront rather than using in-app purchases.

Tynker Premium costs £2.99 for iPad on Apple’s App Store.

Read about more coding for kids apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store