My friend created a website which solves most of these issues. Instead of using a "made-up" language like how Scratch does, its building blocks are just proxies

My friend created a website which solves most of these issues. Instead of using a "made-up" language like how Scratch does, its building blocks are just proxies for CoffeeScript code. You can also freely move between block mode and editing mode, so students who want to learn "real syntax" can do so without having to move to a new platform. CoffeeScript is also potentially helpful for employment because learning JavaScript is a natural progression. We currently use it for teaching middle schoolers code, and they seem to have fun with it. You can take a look at http://pencilcode.org http://pencilcode.org.