I'm a primary deputy head and Computing subject leader, in addition to my dodgy* sideline software company!
I'm massively into teaching the kids programming. Our lot are now pretty good at Scratch, and I'm running some training sessions for the staff to teach them how to teach it.
I have bought AGK2 for all the computers at school! Going to try it with the year 6s this term.
The keys to getting ANY programming language working in a school are:
1. Make sure the staff are reasonably confident to teach it. If the staff enjoy it too, they're much more likely to enthuse the kids.
2. With the kids, don't try to teach too much too quickly. They need time to let the basics sink in (which seem second nature to us as programmers!)
3. The kids will lose interest if they're given rubbish tasks to do ("Make a program to draw a square" - yawn). They need either a real-world problem to solve or a simple game to make.
4. Have game assets/media ready for the kids to use, to create games. If it looks/sounds good, they'll be more likely to go with it and spend some of their breaktimes coding (many of my lot do!) If the media is not there, the kids will try to create it themselves, which they're possibly not very good at. They'll perceive this as a rubbish game and lose heart. Also - you want them to spend time learning to code, not make assets!
5. Design tasks which are good for teaching specific programming ideas or objectives.
6. Initially, they will struggle and you'll be all over the computer suite. Encourage them to help each other and experiment!
7. Teach versioning so they can go back to a working version of their code when they inevitably mess it up.
If I think of any more, I'll post!
Cheers
James
p.s. *Company is in no way dodgy!