Over the past decade, many countries around the world have introduced programming into their national curriculum. It sparked the search for effective teaching practices and practical education technologies.

Since 2017 we have conducted many lessons for students aged 10-12. In our scenarios we tried various programming languages like Scratch, Python, Ruby, Pyret and Elixir. In this talk we will review lessons learned (pun intended). We will consider whether the functional paradigm is well suited to the implementation of the national curriculum. We will also argue that Elixir with its ecosystem is great for the school classroom.