On Saturday 28 February 2026, Ben North, Pytch Lead Developer, travelled to Gaelcholáiste Luimnigh in Limerick City for the annual conference of the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI).

The CESI conference brings together educators from across Ireland to share ideas, experiences and practical approaches to teaching with technology. This year’s theme, “Navigating Digital Futures,” explored how digital tools and creative technologies can support learning in classrooms and informal education settings.

As part of the programme, Ben delivered a hands-on workshop introducing teachers to Pytch and some of the ideas behind the platform.

Trying Pytch for Themselves 🧑‍💻

The workshop began with a short introduction to Pytch as an integrated development environment (IDE), outlining its design goals, technical approach and educational value. Ben explained how Pytch has been developed as a practical tool for computer science education, supporting learners as they move from block-based coding towards text-based programming in Python while retaining the creative, event-driven approach that many students enjoy when learning with Scratch.

Participants then had the opportunity to explore Pytch for themselves using one of the platform’s built-in tutorials, creating a small interactive project. The step-by-step guidance and instant visual feedback allow learners to focus on creativity rather than technical setup, while also demonstrating how easily real Python code can be explored in the classroom.

Several participants commented that the approach could work particularly well in CoderDojo-style or informal learning settings, where creative experimentation and self-directed exploration are encouraged.

Resources for Teachers 📚

During the workshop, Ben also highlighted the range of teaching supports available through Pytch, including built-in tutorials, example projects and a structured set of classroom lesson plans designed to support teachers introducing Python programming. This eight week course is free to download and available in both English and Irish.

These resources are designed to help educators structure learning experiences that begin with guided exploration, before giving students the opportunity to experiment creatively and eventually design and build their own projects.

Thoughtful Questions and Conversations 💬

The session also sparked some interesting discussion about teaching programming. Participants raised questions about how best to support students when they encounter error messages, and how teachers can help learners understand what has gone wrong in their code without becoming discouraged.

Another thoughtful conversation centred on how much detail to explain about Python’s underlying structure. When introducing ideas such as objects and classes, is it better for beginners to understand the technical details straight away, or is it sometimes more helpful to allow students to treat these ideas as abstractions while they focus on creating projects?

As with many aspects of teaching computing, the answer often depends on the learners, the context and the goals of the lesson.

Sharing Ideas Across the Community 🌍

Events like the CESI conference provide a valuable opportunity for educators to share ideas and learn from one another’s experiences. It was encouraging to hear how teachers are thinking about introducing programming to students in ways that feel accessible, creative and engaging.

Ben also greatly enjoyed the many interesting presentations and discussions throughout the day. It was invaluable to meet in person with partners and supporters of the Pytch project, as well as to make some new connections within the computing education community.

Many thanks to the CESI organisers for hosting such a welcoming and thoughtful event.