Can someone clever clear this up for me? GCSE level Chemistry?

i can see where the confusion could arise if you are not very familiar with these chemistry terms. however, what the explanation really is saying is that metal atoms are made up of components like protons, electrons, and neutrons. What the flame test affects is a metal atom's electrons. So when you put the metal in a flame, the flame is hot and so very intuitively you should think this hotness will somehow be transfered to the metal ion in the form of energy. Once in the metal ion, this energy excites the metal's electrons. But since these energy are not intrinsic to the metal they will escape and so you see light when these energies dissipate.