Wardley Primary provide STEM and Robotics for all

Our Dream

Here at Wardley Primary School, we are passionate about STEM and robotics.

Our dream this year is to:

1. Provide all pupils in our school access to robotics

2. Send Team 38154A Wardley Primary School (UK National Champions) to Dallas in the USA to compete in the Vex Robotics World Championships

3. Organise a STEM careers day in the summer term to excite our pupils about the opportunities that lay open to them in the industry.

Join forces with a winning team!

For the last 4 years, Wardley Primary School has competed in both the VexIQ and First Lego League Competitions. In 3 out of the 4 years, the school's First Lego League teams have won the regional tournament at Nissan, Washington and progressed to the UK finals The first time they competed at the FLL England and Wales finals, they were ranked 33rd in the Robot run. The following year, our school’s robot finished 13th. Last year, our fantastic Wardley team, achieved their best ever finish. They were ranked 8th overall out of all primary and secondary schools in England and Wales.

At the UK Championships in Telford, Wardley's VexIQ team were crowned National Teamwork Champions at the end of 2 days of competition. Why not watch the moment that it happened? Team celebration video

They also won the Excellence award and were 2nd place in the Robot Skills Challenge. This means that they have qualified to represent the United Kingdom and compete in next year's Vex Robotics World Championship in Dallas, USA. This will take place between the 2nd and 4th of May.

Wardley Primary has great links with local industry. It is satisfying that our excellent provision for STEM and our commitment to robotics has been recognised by others. One of our teachers, Mr Burfield, has been nominated for the most inspirational primary school teacher award at the North East Stem Award 2022.

How you can get involved:

Goal 1: Give all students in our school a taste of robotics in our DT and Computing Curriculum

We want to make STEM and robotics available for all at Wardley. For us, it is not enough to have successful robotics teams, we want all the children to experience the joy of programming a robot and then watching it carry out the commands they have given it. Robotics allows them grow as they wrestle problems, show resilience and ultimately come up with solutions. When we teach robotics, we want the children working in a small group so they can get as much time interacting with the robots as possible.

In order to continue to provide the best possible STEM provision, we need to replace our school's existing iPads as they are now outdated and no longer support many of the apps that we want to use in school. We also want to buy specific equipment that will allow us to give all the children in the school the robotic and coding curriculum they deserve.

Your donations will allow us to purchase:

2 Clemontoni Codeable robots £40 x 2 (£80)

5 PemoTech 42 inch Portable tripod (£100)

76 Ipad 9th generation (£369 x 76) - £28,044

1 Vex 1, 2, 3 Go large class bundle (£2,100)

1 classpack of 12 white Ozbots (£2,600)

1 Vex IQ robots - (£499)

Apps and software (£200)

Samsung Galaxy A13 / camera for videoing (£150 -£300)

Goal 2: Send Team 38154A Wardley Primary School (UK National Champions) to Dallas, USA to compete in the Vex Robotics World Championships

VEX World Trailer

We want to make sure that our VexIQ team is ready and able to attend the World Championship in Dallas. Amazingly, our chief sponsors - The Reece Foundation, have kindly covered the cost of flights and accommodation for the trip. We will leave UK on 29th April and return to the UK on 5th May. We will also need to cover the following additional costs:

The cost of entering the competition - £1,200

The cost of 2 IQ Competition Kits- £998

The cost of 2 supply teachers for a week - £2,000

Estimated travel for the team once in Dallas - £750

Goal 3: Organise a STEM careers day in the summer term excite our pupils about the opportunities that lay open to them.

We want all the pupils at our school to be aware of the opportunities that lay ahead of them if they follow a career in STEM. During the summer term, we will hold a STEM week where we will invite professionals who work in STEM to come and talk about their careers. In addition to financial aid, we would love to hear from local STEM organisations, with a passion for education, who would be prepared to come into school during the summer term to take part in our STEM Career’s Fair. This can be done as a physical visit or remotely through Teams. If you are interested in taking part than contact us at [email redacted].uk

Thank you so much for your support. You can follow the progress of 38154A Wardley Primary School on their road to the Vex Robotics World Championship by subscribing to our WardleyRobotics YouTube Channel. The channel will collect together examples of robotics throughout the year.

Take a look at our YouTube channel