Updates, news and features from our team
We are really excited to have been making some new connections in the last couple of weeks. We have now launched our LEGO Robotics for Business programme and are looking out for North East businesses to engage with.
We’ve already been talking to lots of companies and organisations with STEM links, and now have events, meetings and exciting projects for the future lined up. So we can’t wait to see what the next couple of months bring as we look to grow and strengthen STEM opportunities for schools in the North East.
Take a look at our LEGO Robotics for Business page to find out more about our team building sessions and CSR opportunities, or get in touch.
After some really successful trial events, we are delighted to launch our LEGO® Robotics for Business service this week. The scheme is designed to offer a fantastic team-building experience to north east businesses while also engaging them in STEM education in our region.
Events are built on our hugely successful FIRST® LEGO® League programme, where teams of adults will get the chance to take on the robot game and design, build and code LEGO Spike Prime robots to complete a series of missions in an assault-course style time trial, with a bit of friendly competition thrown in for good measure! Will they measure up to what students in our schools can do with their robots? Only time will tell!
The companies will also have the chance to fulfil their corporate social responsibility goals by supporting schools with their participation in FIRST LEGO League, through sponsorship of equipment, entry fees, or setting up entirely new tournaments in regions where there is currently no provision.
We are so excited for this new venture, building new partnerships, and being able to support even more schools and inspire even more students to be passionate about STEM. Early interest from businesses has been fantastic, so watch this space for some updates!
Find out more on our Robotics for Business page.
We have added a number of brand new sections to our site, including a new look home page to give you quick access to the main features.
Our fantastic computing scheme of work still takes pride of place, but now in its own section.
A new page has been added to give more information on the computing support options that we can offer to schools, and a major new section has been added to showcase the wide-ranging work we do on the fabulous STEM programme; FIRST LEGO League. This includes all age divisions of the programme as well as the Sage Class pack project and our new LEGO robotics offerings for businesses.
Other main sections are now available from the site home page and the main menu on the site has been redesigned to fit with these changes but still includes all other sections in the ‘more’ option.
We hope these additions are useful and make our wider services and work clearer to users.
We have added another brand new unit of work to our collection, to further improve the way coding is taught at the beginning of Key Stage 2. We’d recommend this unit for Year 3 students.
Starting from Scratch adopts the PRIMM method of teaching computer science. Research suggests that this method lays strong foundations in students when learning the basics of coding, but is a great method at any stage of their learning. PRIMM stands for:
- Predict
- Run
- Investigate
- Modify
- Make
Students develop their understanding by spending more time reading and understanding existing code before starting to modify given examples and then finally plan and code their own animation project.
You can find all our units of work in our A-Z collection and all Key Stage 2 units of work HERE.
We have added a brand new unit of work to our Key Stage 2 computer science collection!
Kodu – An independent project, does what the title suggests and gives your class the opportunity to unleash their full creative and coding potential with Kodu Game Lab. Students will work independently to plan, design, test and evaluate their own Kodu games, using a resource bank of ideas to guide, inspire and support them.
This unit will replace ‘Kodu Sports’ in our example long term plan and recommended units, although ‘Kodu Sports’ is still available in our ‘All units’ and ‘All KS2 units’
Essential prior learning comes in the shape of our Year 3 unit: Getting started with Kodu.
At the top of each unit page you will now see something like this:
As you can see, we have also created a full curriculum map that shows the progression of the various computing curriculum strands and sub-strands through primary year groups from Year 1 to Year 6. A link to this is also provided on all unit pages and also in the subject leader area of the website.
We have now completed updates for all Key stage 2 units of work that contain lessons with 2Simple tools. Where relevant, all units have been updated to now include guidance and screenshots that reference Purple Mash, instead of the now outdated 2Simple Collection of software. We hope you enjoy these updates and the new options that Purple Mash offers in our lessons.
If you have just moved to Purple Mash and require staff training, please get in touch as that is something we can provide: teachictnt@ntlp.org.uk
The subject leader area has been reorganised and new documents have been added, including guides for Ofsted inspectors for carrying out deep dives in computing, which may be equally useful for subject leaders to assist with planning for inspection.
As part of our scheme of work, we include lessons from Common Sense Education’s Digital Citizenship curriculum. We have now cross-referenced the excellent content of these lessons with the Education for a Connected World framework, which describes the Digital knowledge and skills that children and young people should have the opportunity to develop at different ages and stages of their lives. It highlights what a child should know in terms of current online technology, its influence on behaviour and development, and what skills they need to be able to navigate it. Common Sense Education’s resources are recommended in the Education for a Connected World framework as essential skills for today’s learners. Both resources together, along with Project Evolve, provide you with an excellent set of tools to deliver a comprehensive online safety and digital literacy curriculum.
Our Early Years page has been rearranged and updated to include new resources, videos, and links to useful articles on how to include ICT and computing elements in your Early Years curriculums. You can find the Early Years page from the ‘More’ menu on the navigation bar or by clicking HERE