It was a simple brief: build a bridge and get over it! For 60 minutes four groups of learners constructed their bridges, exploring all aspects of mechanical forces. What if they changed size, weight, angle, motor speed? They brainstormed, modelled and collaborated, even across groups. And they would happily have continued for another hour or two. The pleasure was palpable.
This is becoming business as usual at the UK's first LEGO Education Centre – housed in Stockley Academy, West London – where teacher Joos Bergh, someone who's actively averse to "spoon-feeding learning", puts his learners in the driving seat of their lesson.
Stockley's LEGO Education Centre (LEC), where students work with the full range of LEGO kits and software for work across the curriculum, from simple story-telling to building robots, has been an instant success. A visitor would only wonder why it has taken so long to arrive in the UK when there are 140 other centres across Scandinavia. Perhaps it's the marketing, or a cultural reluctance to get too close to a particular product or company.
The centre came from the vision of ICT director Aftab Ahmed who was looking for a unique feature to inspire learners for the school's specialisms, science and technology. And the immediate focus of the work is for the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Observing the children's deep engagement with the work, it's easy to see the immediate raising of the profiles of engineering and mathematics, something that has implications for the perception of professions associated with those two subject areas. There appeared to be no gender issues around the work, with the girls playing full and, in some cases, leading roles.
Aftab Ahmed's vision of empowering young learners and helping produce engineers does not appear over-ambitions. And Stockley principal Ian Storey, who backed the idea to find the £20,000 funding , was just as enthusiastic. The way the new centre was driving student engagement, achievement and behaviour more than justified the investment, he said, and parents were extremely enthusiastic too.
Anything else? 'When do we get started?'
A simple lesson warm-up activity for both students and visitors, led by LEGO Dacta's education manager Rob Widger, demonstrated the role of imagination and creativity. The simple design brief to design a duck with less than 10 "bricks" (this was a project to design a bridge over a river!) generated an impressive range of creations, with hardly any the same.
While the introduction brought in the visitors, the Year 8 and 9 learners had to reign in their impatience, and when Joos Bergh asked them was there anything else they would like to know, the answer was short and to the point. "When do we get started?" asked Luke Latham
When it came to the bridge design the range of creativity was similarly wide. All the designs were different, and whether the bridge lifted or swivelled it seemed to make no difference to the possibilities afforded to explore the lesson's purpose - motion and mechanisms.
When the "real" work starts, Joos Bergh is clear about who is driving the learning. The aim is to come up with your own ideas, he tells his groups: "And do not be afraid to make mistakes because that is where the learning happens."
Of course there are mistakes and blind alleys, but their teacher is always at hand to step in to encourage the discussion and the questions. Impressively, the students are not slow to develop their own questions and suggestions and to share them across groups. Year 9 student Magda Mosengo, for example, had enough ideas for everyone and was a familiar face in cross-group working.
So what does Stockley get for its £20,000? It has one room equipped with furniture, storage and ICT, all of it specially designed. For example the work table is surrounded by a "lip" that helps keep the parts where they should be (the contract provides for replacement parts which, as in home use, can simply disappear).
Next door is a conventional classroom equipped with a computer network where students can use the range of software that supports all the construction equipment. Cleverly, all the software is based on the industry standard LabVIEW program that is used by organisations like NASA.
Of course you would never know it. For example the WeDo entry-level construction product for younger learners and beginners has its own, bespoke software. It's extremely graphic and easy to use, but it allows learners to create their own, on-screen control routines that can then "played" so that the device attached to the computer can be seen responding to the commands as the software issues them. It's hard to imagine a simple, more effective introduction to programming and robotics - and it's engaging for adults too.
The product ranges include Simple and Powered Machines, Pneumatics, Renewable Energy and LEGO MINDSTORMS with Data Logging. These packages help students to explore the principles behind everyday technology and mechanics, generating and storing energy and robot constructions. The use of sophisticated sensors also helps students undertake creative investigations into sustainability.
Of course, with equipment of this range and possible complexity, LEGO Dacta, based in Wrexham, North Wales, and now owned by RM, has finely tuned the back-up for schools into a rounded package. The centre also has a library of support materials for curriculum work, and it has its own education specialists who are classroom confident.
Then there's the international community. The most popular (try a Google search) and motivational activities happen in the LEGO Leagues where schools compete across regions, countries and continents. The competition brings new materials and ideas into schools and they get to keep the new equipment they use.
Is Stockley Academy getting its money's worth? The teachers and learners who are starting to use the centre have no doubts. For the visitor, the instant focus is the engagement and the learning, not the equipment. There is a clear vision, and the ambition and the scale of the provision appear to be unlocking the learning.
Yes, there is other construction technology and other software, but this LEGO Education Centre offers a coherent package that supports the vision of learning that Stockley is developing around student engagement and empowerment. It doesn't take long to pick up on how the school is moving, how it is already considering the wisdom of a blanket ban on mobile phones for example (pointing a student-owned phone camera at the learning activities in the centre could be an instantly appropriate use!).
The business opportunities will not be lost on LEGO Dacta's owner RM. Now a major player in the Building Schools for the Future programme, where the power of learning spaces is now being recognised and valued, the company now has yet another potent flavour for the menu it can offer schools that are ambitious about transforming their learning.
The ultimate test will be a return visit to Stockley Academy's LEGO Education Centre in a year's time to see how the activities have moved across the curriculum and across the school, and have supported achievements. If the school was ever to entertain an open day for bookmakers rather than journalists, it would emerge a clear favourite.
The learners could deliver the verdict in the clear, direct style you can normally rely on. Like Luke Latham, explaining what he really liked about the Stockley Academy LEGO Education Centre: "It's being up there doing things, instead of sitting there in class with teachers talking at you all the time (not that I don't like teachers talking to me)."
More information
Stockley Academy
LEGO Dacta
LEGO Education Centre
RM
Lego WeDo video
BETT2010
You can fnd out more about LEGO on the LEGO Education stand at the BETT Show at Olympia in January (13-16). Stand C79
The children's' talk has become more focused as the need for technical and descriptive language has been increased. The low ability readers have an advantage in following non textual instructions as the competent readers seek reassuring textual prompts. Children work together using and applying skills in maths, Design technology, science, engineering, logic, reasoning, problem solving, lateral thinking, questioning, both collaboratively and competitively.