Birchfield School is one of the first to get its hands on a product from LEGO Education.
A primary school situated in rural Shropshire has become the first in the world to teach its pupils maths using LEGO.
Birchfield School is one of the first to get its hands on a product from LEGO Education – the educational arm of the Danish toymaker – called MoreToMaths, scheduled to launch later this month.
MoreToMaths has been under development for more than two years at LEGO’s head offices in Denmark and in the US, before being adapted to help kids in England conquer Key Stage 1 mathematics.
“We are very much aware that this will challenge the traditional way of teaching maths,” René Lydiksen, managing director of LEGO Education Europe told The Guardian.
“Teaching maths is, I’d say, typicaly done from the blackboard in the classroom towars the students, which might be a little bit old fashioned – at the risk of getting a lot of maths teachers on my neck.”
MoreToMaths now allows teachers ‘to concentrate on the learning process’ and one set contains curriculum activities for 48 lessons, defined by the latest National Curriculum standards.
Through the activities, pupils can help the two characters, Max and Mia solve problems presented in four real life themes.
LEGO Education already offers sets to aid literacy, science and computing. MoreToMaths sets vary in price from £139.99 for two pupils, to £749.99 for a class of 30.
Hugh Myott, headteacher at Birchfield School, said: “We have got to prepare young people for living in the 21st century, and we have got to get them thinking from a very young age.
“Children are exposed to so much technology that they need something extra and we need to be ready to provide that.”
