In Summer term the BAE Systems funded #InspiringLancashire Programme was extended to include a 3D printing Primary programme involving 100 Primary Schools in Lancashire. In this funded digital skills and careers programme, every year for 3 years, each Primary School will receive a half term 3D printer loan with filament to 3D print student projects, a teacher training day and a set of fully resourced curriculum projects.

Wave 1 of the programme ran with the first 25 schools during the Summer term. We recently caught up with two of the schools to see how they got on.

Teacher Training Day

During the teacher training day, each school received an UltiMaker 2+ Connect 3D printer to keep in school for the following half term. Then in the hands-on sessions that followed, teachers learned how to set-up and operate the 3D printer, how to set up classes and manage classes in Tinkercad, how to use Tinkercad to create 3D models, how to slice and prepare their models for 3D printing using UltiMaker Cura and how to 3D print their designs. They were also guided through a complete Primary 3D printing Skills progression and given example projects, resources and ideas for introducing and embedding 3D printing across the curriculum.

Delph Side Primary School, Skelmersdale

Highfield Community Primary School, Chorley

CREATE Education would like to thank Jonathan Fyne, Assistant Headteacher and Year 3 Teacher at Delph Side Primary School and Chris Taylor, Maths Lead and Yr6 Teacher at Highfield Community Primary School and all the students for sharing their experiences with us.