Our school Breg is a small elementary school founded in 1872 which is based on the principles of Grundtvig and Kold. School issituated in Ptuj, the oldest city in Slovenia. We have 285 students aged 6-14 study and 34 teachers work in our school. We are a school with Slovenian language of instruction. In our school emphasis is put on development of individual aptitude and interests of the students. For these purpose we offer a wide range of selective subjects: Tourism Education, Sport for Health, Sport for release, Chosen sport – football, Experiments in chemistry, Modern food preparation, ICT and Multimedia, Stars and Space, Rhetoric, embroidery etc. We have very active and creative students. The aims of our school are the following: First, to prepare pupils in order to be admitted to High school. Second, to offer intercultural education teaching cooperation and tolerance between people of different cultures and origin. The pupils of our school could be characterised as participants with specific needs for multiple reasons. Our school’s population consists of minority groups of student with learning and behavioural deficits and also many talented students. For our future this project will be a perfect opportunity to develop students specific skills. There is a special kind of robots, the so-called Lego robots, which are well adjusted to children’s developing level.
We have been using VEX IQ robotics set in the last two years. The curriculum based on our students’ interest and need was prepared by STEM teaching staff. This curriculum was practiced with the students age rage between 10-15 for a year. Students’ data-operational thinking ability, their attitude towards STEM, their creativity and products were evaluated before and after the implementation of the programme.
The efficiency of the programme was proved. Our school project will be an important way of bringing students from our school in to contact with European students and giving them chances to broaden their horizons and chance their thinking towards a more globalized and open direction by improving their STEM skills through robotics. We have been on VEX IQ Challenge European Invitational 2019 hosted at the Baltic Open – Parnu – Estonia.
