Schools - JEDI

Information for Schools and Teachers

The Junior Engineer Development Initiative (JEDI) programme is a primary school programme designed to improve children’s engineering skills, their understanding of the attributes needed to be an engineer, and to reduce misconceptions relating to engineering.

JEDI is a whole-class programme. Participating classes will complete four 60-minute structured engineering sessions led by their classroom teacher. During one of these sessions, the class will be visited by a practicing engineer that is trained in engineering outreach.

Participating teachers will attend a two-hour professional learning workshop in advance of delivering the programme and will be supported throughout the JEDI programme through email/phone calls and visits from our research team. As this is the first year of the programme, we are evaluating its success. Therefore, we will request all participating classes to complete an evaluation worksheet before and after the programme.

Primary school children often have limited engagement with engineering and limited, inaccurate views of engineers. We have designed this initiative to improve children’s engineering skills and improve their stereotypes of engineers/engineering.

After completing the JEDI programme, the classroom teacher will also receive a €50 voucher and a classroom certificate to celebrate their participation in the project. After the project, we will also circulate a summary of our research findings including further suggestions and resources for teachers for promoting engineering in the classroom.

We hope that participation in JEDI improves children’s perceptions of engineering and develops their engineering skills. We hope that teachers will feel more confident in teaching engineering-based lessons after participating in JEDI. This is particularly useful given the introduction of engineering-based learning objectives in the new STEM primary school curriculum.

We are recruiting 5th and 6th classes to participate. We aim to include at least two classes per participating school.

First, we will ask that your school Principal gives permission for the school to be involved in the study.

Participating teachers will then attend a two-hour professional learning workshop in advance of delivering the four 60-minute structured engineering sessions that make up the JEDI programme. Teachers will also have access to a suite of online resources to support their delivery of the programme. During the third JEDI session, a practicing engineer will visit each class.

As this is the first year of the project, we will additionally request all participating children and teachers to complete an evaluation worksheet before and after the programme. Prior to the evaluation, we will ask participating teachers to consent to taking part, and parents/guardians of all eligible children will be informed about the project using a parental letter and consent form that is sent to them by the school. Children will also be asked to provide assent for their evaluation worksheets to be shared.

JEDI will launch in September 2025 and there will be two waves of participation. Your school will either participate in October-November 2025 or February-March 2026.