Five Offaly schools at the Centre of Innovative Tech Programme

LAOIS Offaly ETB successfully launched the second year of their innovative STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts and Maths) schools Programme for 2024/24 at a special function at Dunamase College.

The programme is a partnership between LOETB and Laois and Offaly County Councils, and involves five county Offaly post-primary schools: ASCN Clara, Banagher College, CNC Kilcormac, Oaklands CC and Tullamore College.

The programme, launched by LOETB Director of Schools, Linda Tynan, on the day, uses a team-based, project-focused approach to learning, with all nine LOETB schools pitting their skills against each other in areas like design, coding, robotics and digital story-telling. Linda Tynan spoke of the excitement the programme has generated across the schools and the extraordinary creativity that the students display.

At the launch, Offaly County Council’s broadband Officer, Ray Bell, spoke of the potential of programmes like this to provide the digital skills that communities in the region need to thrive in today’s world. He outlined how these kind of initiatives can help provide the jobs of the future for counties like Offaly and Laois. Broadband Officer of Laois County Council, Antoinette Brennan, spoke of the difference programmes like this can make to students, giving everybody the opportunity to find and nurture their particular talents.

The Programme has already seen over €90,000 worth of equipment and training delivered to over 30 teachers and 250 students across the nine LOETB schools. Each school participates in all four strands of the programme – Vex Robotics, First Lego League, Minecraft and Podcasting – culminating in four LOETB exclusive competition finals, one for each strand. The work is then showcased – and the winners rewarded - at a special STEAM Showcase day, which this school year will take place on April 10^th.

Thanks to the generosity of the councils, along with new sponsor, NIS (overall prize), the prize fund for this year’s programme will be over €10,000. This comes in the form of team prizes, as well as STEAM equipment for the winning schools.

At the launch, the four schools who were victorious in last year’s competition - Dunamase College (podcasting), Portlaoise College (Minecraft Design), Tullamore College (First LEGO League) and Banagher College (Vex Robotics) - received their prizes from the council representatives – everything from i-macs, to video cameras to VR headsets.

The work to prepare for these competitions takes place during lunch-time STEAM clubs in each school, where students are facilitated by the supporting teachers to work in their teams to develop their respective competition entries, while all the time building up key skills in the areas of creativity, team-work, project planning and problem solving.