The Programme
FIRST® LEGO® League shows young people what it means to be an engineer and work with STEM skills and subjects, but focuses on practical, hands-on learning, so they are doing, not watching. FIRST® LEGO® League Explore is designed for 6-9 year-olds and it's an exciting, non-competitive STEM challenge that rapidly develops teamwork, design, programming, digital and communication skills.
Each year a theme relevant to the world around them is chosen as a focus for the children’s work. The teams research the topic, displaying their ideas on a team poster, build a LEGO® model and programme one part to move using LEGO® Education SPIKE Essential. Teams will then prepare to share their work and celebrate what they have discovered with a team of reviewers and other local teams at a FIRST® LEGO® League Explore Festival.
FIRST® LEGO® League Explore Class Pack is an ‘in house’ version of the globally recognised FIRST® LEGO® League Explore programme. It gives you the opportunity, resources and guidance to run and deliver the programme within your curriculum time.
What you can do
Teachers and coaches are fully supported with comprehensive resources available to download on the IET Teacher Resources webpage, training videos, digital assets and support.
You can sign up here, and if you're in a location with funding, complete the 30 Day Challenge to get grant funding to cover all the costs associated with delivering the programme in your school or community group. The team at Learnit (Ireland) or the IET (UK) will support you through the process.
The Programme
FIRST® LEGO® League shows young people what it means to be an engineer and work with STEM skills and subjects, but focuses on practical, hands-on learning, so they are doing, not watching. FIRST® LEGO® League Explore is designed for 6-9 year-olds and it's an exciting, non-competitive STEM challenge that rapidly develops teamwork, design, programming, digital and communication skills.
Each year a theme relevant to the world around them is chosen as a focus for the children’s work. The teams research the topic, displaying their ideas on a team poster, build a LEGO® model and programme one part to move using LEGO® Education SPIKE Essential. Teams will then prepare to share their work and celebrate what they have discovered with a team of reviewers and other local teams at a FIRST® LEGO® League Explore Festival.
FIRST® LEGO® League Explore Class Pack is an ‘in house’ version of the globally recognised FIRST® LEGO® League Explore programme. It gives you the opportunity, resources and guidance to run and deliver the programme within your curriculum time.
What you can do
Teachers and coaches are fully supported with comprehensive resources available to download on the IET Teacher Resources webpage, training videos, digital assets and support.
You can sign up here, and if you're in a location with funding, complete the 30 Day Challenge to get grant funding to cover all the costs associated with delivering the programme in your school or community group. The team at Learnit (Ireland) or the IET (UK) will support you through the process.
Impact Report - Initially, we had planned to run the project across 2 terms so that we could complete the whole project. However, due to unexpected delays we were only able to run the project for 7 weeks.
The children were able to build the models but we didn't get to the coding part where the children would develop their programming skills using the app. This is something that we will look to revise and will definitely include when delivering this to our new cohort of children.
Our children that took part in the project were 6 or 7 and it was very clear to see which children engaged with Lego at home and which children didn't. Initially some children struggled with the build but were supported by their team members and throughout the course of the project their developed their building skills and their understanding of how to follow the instructions to complete their build.
The project definitely developed the children's collaborative play, their language skills and even at times the skills that they developed around conflict resolution when resolving issues with their build or with their team mates.
The general consensus from the children that took part was they they really enjoyed their Lego sessions. It's something completely new for us as a school and the opportunity it gave our children to learn about renewable energy through such an engaging and exciting resource really led to a lot of excitement around the project. We will definitely be continuing this project next year!
Lego Receipts
Impact Report - Initially, we had planned to run the project across 2 terms so that we could complete the whole project. However, due to unexpected delays we were only able to run the project for 7 weeks.
The children were able to build the models but we didn't get to the coding part where the children would develop their programming skills using the app. This is something that we will look to revise and will definitely include when delivering this to our new cohort of children.
Our children that took part in the project were 6 or 7 and it was very clear to see which children engaged with Lego at home and which children didn't. Initially some children struggled with the build but were supported by their team members and throughout the course of the project their developed their building skills and their understanding of how to follow the instructions to complete their build.
The project definitely developed the children's collaborative play, their language skills and even at times the skills that they developed around conflict resolution when resolving issues with their build or with their team mates.
The general consensus from the children that took part was they they really enjoyed their Lego sessions. It's something completely new for us as a school and the opportunity it gave our children to learn about renewable energy through such an engaging and exciting resource really led to a lot of excitement around the project. We will definitely be continuing this project next year!
Hi,
I have uploaded the impact summary, however, it would only let me upload one of the receipts. Where do I need to upload the other receipts to?
Timeline – Staff training to run the project will take place over the Autumn Term. Initially the project will be delivered to small groups of children through a school club provision run by Clare McCluskey. This will give me the chance to understand how to teach and deliver the lessons using the resources and then we will hold staff meetings to allow the rest of the staff team to explore the resources as well.
Once the initial training has been completed then the project will be delivered to our Year 2 children during the Spring Term.
Budget – The Lego WeDo 2.0 kits are being retired so are currently out of stock. They are however being replaced by the Lego spike essential kit. If we needed to purchase 5 of these then the cost would be £1386.00.
Covid Safety Plan – We still undertake extra cleaning of resources and ensure that children are regularly washing their hands throughout the day.
Expected impact – All of our Year 2 children will take part in this project which is approximately 90 children. We will also aim to deliver small group sessions as a school club to other children throughout school who have an interest in exploring STEM activities through Lego. We will aim to train 5 members of staff initially to deliver and teach this. The impact of the project will be measured through formative observations of the children through their play and exploration of the resources. A big focus for us is the exposure to STEM activities, providing our children with the opportunity to problem solve, communicate with others effectively and take on a role within their team to achieve their goal. Initially, this process will be very guided by staff but we are hoping to see children independently engaging with these resources and guiding their own explorations.