Ask HN: Help in creating a curriculum for students from Grade 4 to Grade 9

I've been asked to advise a school to help with their computer training curriculum.

Some background - This school is located in India. Financially, this places constraints regarding the number of computers available as well as the amount of time the students can spend on them. In social terms, there is still a lot of pressure on students to prepare towards their Grade 10 examinations which is geared towards rote learning than understanding. Programming / Computers is not part of the syllabus. Parents would rather have their kids score high in tests rather than code some programs. Internet connectivity is also a challenge so many online training courses might not be possible.

The school's current curriculum, does not prepare them for further exploration into programming. Students are assigned an hour of computer lab time per week starting from 4th Grade.

I had a look at 'Hour of Code' [1] from Khan Academy which seems very interesting, especially the one on 'Drawing' [2].

I was thinking of introducing Javascript from the 6th grade. Something like RaphaelJs [3], which is what the 'Hour of Code' seems to be using but with a better interface.

I was thinking of Javascript mainly because, every computer practically has a Javascript IDE built in. So, they won't need to install additional software across computers. Another language I was thinking of was Visual Basic, specifically Visual Basic of Applications (VBA), since this comes bundled with Microsoft Office suite. This would also help them learn basic code modules and structuring.

Any suggestions, advice, is welcome. Free software is preferable. The time they have with computers is quite limited, so that also has to be kept into consideration.

[1] https://www.khanacademy.org/hourofcode

[2] https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-code-tutorial/p/intro-to-drawing

[3] http://raphaeljs.com/