This term, in computing, children have taken part in theMASTERPIECE season of FIRST LEGO League. In teams the children imagined and innovated new ways to create and communicate art across the globe. The children use SPIKE Lego Education kits that encourage STEM learning through building and programming moving parts using coding in the app.
On Thursday 11th July, the children in year 3, visited The Word in South Shields to take part in the South Tyneside Lego League Festival where they had the opportunity to show off their moving Lego models and team posters. The children enjoyed making friends with children from other schools and see what they had been building in their school.
The children worked very hard on their models and team posters at school and the judges were impressed. They also answered the judges questions very well and showed off their knowledge excellently. The teams won The team spirit award, The core values award, The stick to it award and the Team poster award.
British Science Week is a ten-day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths that took place between 8 – 17 March 2024. This year, the theme was ‘TIME‘.
All year groups took part in daily science missions inked to one of the five different methods of scientific enquiry.
Research using secondary sources.
Comparative and fair testing.
Observing over time.
Pattern seeking.
Identifying, classifying and grouping.
The children joined a daily virtual celebration at the end of the day to see what other schools involved had been up to and to celebrate their achievements of the day. What a great week we all had!
The nursery children had a lovely week planting beans & cress and observing them growing daily. They practised star jumps (a skill) and compared their progress over time.
In Autumn term, an amazing opportunity opened up for schools in South Tyneside. FIRST®
LEGO® League, The IET, Sage and ICT in Schools partnered up to enable
schools to deliver a full STEM educational programme for all pupils. Laygate School were excited to hear we had been chosen to be part of the project and participate in FIRST® LEGO® League. We received all of the hardware, robot kits and Lego kits and we began our new, exciting journey at the beginning of summer term.
Our new journey has got off to a fantastic start and the children are already fully engaged in the project. They are looking forward to next academic year where teams will have the opportunity to participate in the South Tyneside regional competition and compete to win a place at the FIRST® LEGO® League England and Wales National Final!
Year 3 beginning their exciting journey.
Inclusion.
Fun.
Innovation.
Teamwork.
Discovery.
Inclusion.
Teamwork.
Fun.
Watch the videos below of the year 3 children’s achievements.
FIRST® LEGO® League is a worldwide competition that introduces pupils to hands-on robotics and programming. It is a fantastic opportunity for children to develop their STEM and computer science skills while also developing creative thinking, problem solving and team work skills.
Every year, FIRST® LEGO® League releases a new challenge based on a real-world, scientific theme. This year the theme is SUPERPOWERED where the children will learn about different types of energy sources, storage, distribution methods, and ways
in which energy is consumed.
FIRST® LEGO® League is split into three divisions; Discover, Explore and Challenge.
EYFS and Year 1 children use the Discover Kit, where they are introduced to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) through building models using LEGO® DUPLO® bricks, and working together to solve fun challenges.
Year 2 and LKS2 children use the Explore Kitwhere they can put STEM into practice as they work in teams to design, build and program robots using the LEGO® Education SPIKE Essential and block coding.
UKS2 use the Challenge Kit and apply their STEM skills combined with critical thinking to work with a team, build a robot, and compete in an exciting, mission-based robotics game using block or text code.
We will keep you updated about our journey with FIRST® LEGO® League and are very excited to see where it takes us.
As part of Year 6’s computer science learning, the children visited Openzone @ The Word to experience some hands on STEM & Robotics learning. They completed a robotics workshop using Spike software and lego pieces. The children worked very well together to build robots attached to motors and wrote their own code to program the robot to move.
As part of out Design Technology unit of work, the children in year 3 have been learning about electrical circuits and how they are used in a range of everyday products. The children were given the following design brief:
To design and make a greetings card that lights up.
You are going to design and create a bespoke, one-off greetings card for a person of your choice. You will need to consider the purpose of the card and an appropriate theme linked to Christmas. It must include an electrical element and be attractive and appealing.
The children used online research and reading to help develop the design criteria and communicated their ideas through discussion and annotated sketches. The children decided whether they would design a card with a traditional or religious Christmas theme and whether to make it 2D or 3D.
Here are some photos of our creative designers and engineers and their work:
We used copper wire to make ‘paper circuits’ using a folded over switch.
Each group were given a battery, two wires and a bulb. They were then set a challenge to work together to make the bulb light up. The children were delighted when they solved the problem and figured out how to create a working circuit.
