Snakes and Lego

On a beautifully sunny Winter’s day, we had the pleasure of hosting Year 7 students from the Oratory Prep School for a day full of fun activities. The students had the opportunity to select from two engaging workshops, each designed to ignite their curiosity, expand their knowledge, and encourage creativity: a Chinese New Year workshop or a Design Technology Lego workshop.

The Chinese New Year workshop built on the students’ recent experiences at OPS, where they had celebrated the Year of the Snake last week, and offered a fascinating blend of language, culture, and cooking. The session began with an interactive lesson from Leighton Park’s Mandarin teacher, Lan Worrall, where the students discussed Chinese traditions, the significance of Chinese New Year, and even learned a few key phrases in Mandarin. They also had the chance to try their hand at Chinese Calligraphy, learning to write the word “Hello” (Ni Hao) in traditional characters, and created a New Year card featuring the Chinese symbol for the snake. The experience allowed the students to connect their own celebrations at OPS with the broader cultural context of Chinese New Year.

Next, the students headed to Leighton Park’s Food Technology room, where they had the chance to make Chinese Spring Rolls with the help of Food Tech teacher Karen Hicks. They got hands-on experience in food preparation, learning skills such as chopping, grating, and cooking, as they crafted these tasty snacks to take home. Ben Bentley (Year 7 tutor from the OPS), took part in the workshop and thought it was “Absolutely brilliant!” adding that his students had “benefitted immensely” as it was “a great introduction to Mandarin and exposed the children to cookery skills from a different country”.

Concurrently, in the Design and Technology Lego Workshop, the students worked in teams to design and construct a vehicle using Lego Technik. Their challenge was to create a vehicle that could successfully navigate a ramp that became increasingly steeper throughout the session. With each attempt, they refined their designs, and applied theory that they’d learnt in the breakout classroom session. Throughout the workshop the importance of teamwork and trial & error was reinforced, as they improved their creations through collaboration and problem-solving.

Head of Senior Prep at the OPS, Chris Sizer, brought the students to LP to “Develop an inquisitive outlook towards DT and learn about mechanics and engineering,” adding that the workshops exceeded his expectation, as “the children were thoroughly engaged for the duration and learned so much!”

The students had a fantastic time engaging in both workshops, each offering something unique. Roey who participated in the Chinese New Year workshop especially enjoyed the cooking, “It has been an amazing experience, I would love to go again”. Meanwhile Bethany shared “I learned some Mandarin and made Chinese New Year cards. Afterwards I made some delicious spring rolls. I had the best time!” Over in the Design Technology Lego workshop, students were equally enthusiastic. “It was fabulous. My favourite part was the trial and error of the vehicles and thinking of how to make the car better” said Robert, while David added, “It was a fun and memorable experience.”

Many of the students left with a sense of excitement, eager to return and experience the other workshop they hadn’t had the chance to try, so we hope we can welcome them back on the Park soon!

You can read more about our approach to STEAM education here. For more photographs from these workshops please visit our online gallery.