Working together to deliver maker education to local schools
Vision Redbridge Culture and Leisure received support from the Libraries Opportunities for Everyone Innovation Fund to create LabCentral, a new makerspace in a underused part of the Redbridge Central Library.
A key part of the project was to work in partnership with local educators to provide ‘a programme of activities to increase skills and improve life chances for over 120,000 people, including children, young people and families in local neighbourhoods’.
As well as providing equipment and staff training, Artefacto worked with Redbridge Staff to deliver events directly to four local schools (16 school groups in total). These events provided students with a general introduction to Lab Central and digital making, followed by a carrousel of three activities and a plenary discussion at the end.
The events were designed to give both teachers and students a fun and informative introduction to LabCentral at Redbridge Library as well as an overview of digital making and some of the equipment now available via the local library service. The feedback we received from these events was really positive.
Feedback
Teachers:
“The children where very engaged, they are all really keen on technology so this is great for them, they where especially exited about coding. It was very educational and fun. I even enjoyed myself and learned something new as well! K. Kamal – Year 5 Teacher – Winston Way Primary School
“I have never seen them talk that much. There is an autistic child in the class that has been completely engaged. They all have been engaged. It’s been the best trip so far. We all have enjoyed ourselves” Carla Duber – Year 5 Teacher – Winston Way Primary School
Children:
“This is the best trip we have ever had”
“I thought it was really educational about technology and I liked it”
“We had to really think what we had to do, like to make the car (with LittleBits) so it was challenging. But so much fun”
Outcome
We continue to work with Redbridge to help build sustainable relationships with local schools and to promote Hub Central as a collaborative, creative space for the community.