Joshua Aghion – Co-ordinator of Innovation (K-6)

The Role of Giving Things A Go!

The Maker Space movement has been around for a long time, but its inclusion into educational settings has been relatively recent. Every day it is clear that the students are able to explore deep learning and understand complex ideas through their building, designing, constructing and exploring. The power is in the strength of the idea that there is no right answer. In a Maker Space environment, there is never one answer. Students are not searching for the correct answer or what they perceive their teacher is looking for, rather they are given the freedom to explore their answer, their thinking and creativity. 

Year 6 have been working diligently on their unit titled ‘Beyond Earth’ this week. Students were building a model of the universe using VR technology. They were overheard saying: “Wow, I didn’t know it was so big”, “So the galaxy is really just filled with lots of nothing?” and “The Sun is so big compared to Earth!”. This really stood out  – it is another reminder of the need for students to be active in the learning process, to build, construct, make mistakes and create the world for themselves.

Students can watch videos, read books, be told and have a strong understanding of the universe, but it is only upon them using that knowledge to build the Solar System that they can ask questions, they can really understand what it is that they are learning. 

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The Imaginarium has been established as a place for students to build, construct, wonder and learn. This term, lunchtime clubs have been established giving students an opportunity to construct the world on Minecraft, build their designs in construction clubs and use Lego Robotics to explore the universe to solve real world problems. 

If your child would like to spend some of their time at home, exploring, creating and building; feel free to collect some recyclable materials and give students some tech-free fun time. For some students, you may need to give them a starting idea or prompt.

Some ideas you may use include: 

• If you were stuck on an island, make the three things that you would take with you. 
• Shoes are BORING! What can you invent to make a shoe that does more than just protect your feet? 
• If you were going to redo your bedroom, what would it look like? Make a model to show us. 

The Fuse Cup

In very exciting news, Emanuel School has just signed up for the International eSports competition, the Fuse Cup. This is an inter-schools competition for Years 5-8 run locally where students practise their skills, teamwork, confidence and sportsmanship as they learn digital citizenship and ways to be safe online, whilst playing video games. We will be holding a student information session in Week 9 at lunchtime and an after school club will begin next term for those students interested in possibly representing Emanuel.

I look forward to welcoming many more students into the Imaginarium at lunchtime over the coming weeks.

Students are free to join for a single session or come along each week: