Five years ago, they noticed at the Child Centre The Keyflower that their students often do not choose a technical course in secondary school. That realisation made them join Techport and seek cooperation with the technical vmbo. Meanwhile, the current director, Melanie Clots, continues this course. And with success. Through all our efforts, we now see an average of three to four students moving on to technical vmbo every year!"
Sport, Culture, Nature and Technology
Melanie: "Kindcentrum De Sleutelbloem offers children the opportunity to develop their talents in different ways. Not every child knows immediately what his or her talents are. They have to discover that first. This is why we start with a broad programme as early as the kindergarten class." Melanie continues, "Our child centre is all about organising teaching differently. We work in education teams and teaching is tailored to the learning needs of the pupils where we base ourselves on pupils' qualities, skills and talents. We work a lot with subject teachers and certified trainers and offer a broad programme of sports, cultural, nature and technical activities.
Broad school activities
Both under- and after-school classes are offered for dance, theatre, technology & ICT, visual education, and sports. The children enjoy attending these classes and the lessons are a great addition to basic skills. This means that at our school, mornings are largely focused on basic skills and in the afternoons they can work thematically under the guidance of one of the subject teachers. The subject teachers again align their offerings with the themes covered in the teaching teams."
Bringing creativity and technology together
One of the subject teachers is developer, artist and teacher Jan van Kampen, who is active in three sectors: art, software and education. Jan van Kampen: "Those seem like three separate worlds, but I try to let those three things come together in all the assignments I take on. Similarly with the lesson series I developed at De Sleutelbloem." Jan van Kampen was asked about a year ago to come and teach group 4/5 one day a week. "It was up to me to teach them 'digital skills'. The lessons I ended up developing are about artificial intelligence. It's so much fun, I decided to take it into my regular offerings to other schools."
After-school engineering activities
Jan van Kampen also provides after-school lessons. Then he gives lessons such as "thinking like a robot", programming and building with (technical) Lego. In grades 1-2, the focus here is mainly on "beginning to build", but in the higher grades it moves towards technical Lego. These lessons are creative, but the children also learn to develop insight by working from a building plan.
Playful introduction to the future
Director Melanie: "Students can also sign up for the after-school activity 'Robot Logic', the precursor to creative hacking. Jan van Kampen also teaches this class. Using logic games and robots, children are introduced to a simplified form of artificial intelligence. This is where curiosity about creative hacking and computer technology begins! In a playful way, the children get to work and will marvel at what is possible with robots.
Long breath
Melanie: "Cultivating curiosity and wonder and offering a broad programme in which engineering and technology play an important role; this is necessary to let children discover their talents, develop them and ensure that they opt for an advanced technical education in secondary school. This takes a long haul with constant challenges, but we see that it pays off. So we will continue with it!"