CSES supporting STEM in the community
Funds from the CSES STEM Club Bursary have been used to purchase Lego Spike Essential kits for Cherry Tree Primary School in Basildon, enabling them to run a club for pupils in years 1-6 with a more age-appropriate set of equipment.
Louise Baker, Design and Technology Lead at the school, has the details:
I had been looking to raise the profile of D&T as well as STEM. For the past two academic years, Cherry Tree had booked Lego workshops for Years 1 – 6 and were extremely successful. Every child was fully engaged, you could hear them using more technical vocabulary and building on their imagination. It was also clear that by using these Lego kits the children were gaining more knowledge in technology and improved their problem solving skills, which is key for their future. When completing pupil voice, the children were able to tell me about robotics and that they could become engineers.
However, the existing kits were really for secondary school level so not all children could access this, yet pupils throughout the school were asking when they could take part in this workshop again. The Lego Spike Essential kits enabled me to include more children and keep their level of enthusiasm that has been built. The older pupils at the club, with supervision have been able to make a computerised car and a game.
They were so proud of their achievement that they wanted to present it to a class, the result was a whole class engaged in their achievement. It sparked curiosity and discussion and resulted in more children wanting to take part in the club.
With these kits, pupils built various models and robots, including the fascinating contraption shown in the below video!
CSES supported five schools with other £1300 of bursary funding in 2024-2025. To find out how this could benefit your school, please visit cses.org.uk/education/bursary.