FIRST LEGO League 2025/26 – Unearthed
We are delighted to be launching another FIRST LEGO League season across the North East, as we dig deep into the new 'Unearthed' season. Students will explore this year's archeological theme as they take on the biggest STEM programmes in the world!
Around 1000 young people will put their team work, problem solving, coding and engineering skills to the test across the seven FIRST LEGO League events we are running across the North East of England this year.
What is FIRST LEGO League?
FIRST LEGO League is an exciting global, hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme for 6-16 years olds. Its purpose is to give children a love for STEM learning and inspire the next generation of engineers and technicians.
It's delivered in the UK and Ireland by The Institution of Engineering and Technology, and by regional delivery partners around the county, like our team at Education North Tyneside.
The programme is now split into two age divisions:
FIRST LEGO League Challenge
A robotics and life skills competition for students aged 9 to 16 years old. Teams of up to 10 investigate an annual STEM theme and then take on four equally weighted strands to the competition: The Innovation Project, The Robot Game, Robot Design and Core Values. Teams work together in school before attending a regional tournament event.
Our season begins with the Challenge division, from September 2025 to March 2026.
FIRST LEGO League Explore
An introduction to research and coding for children aged 6 to 9 years old. Students work in teams of up to 6 to investigate an anual STEM theme and design, build and code a moving LEGO model. All while learning about and developing the FIRST Core Values.
Our Explore season runs from February until July 2026, when teams attend our regional festival events.
The Unearthed season
During The new UNEARTHED season, teams are challenged to identify and research a problem faced by archaeologists and propose a solution. They will learn about how archaeology opens a window to the past of how humans lived. They'll find out about how the processes have changed as new technology and methods have become available.
Their problem solving Innovation Project can cover any area of archaeology, but could look at things like:
- Financial and logistical issues
- Field conditions and safety concerns
- Artifact management, analysis and conservation
- Site preservation
- Communication challenges
Our Amazing Partners
As regional delivery partners for FIRST LEGO League, we have always tried to take away financial barriers for schools wishing to participate. We have only been able to do that because of fantastic support from a number of key partners. Sage have sponsored our North Tyneside and Northumberland events since 2017.
They generously pay entry fees for all our competing teams, provide a fantastic venue in the Village Hotel, and also provide an army of volunteers through their fantastic Sage Foundation.
This video gives a wonderful snapshot of our partnership with Sage. It was filmed at our 2024/25 regional tournament events.
Our Teesside event this year will be sponsored by Johnson Matthey for the second year running. They have funded entry fees and provided LEGO Spike Prime robot kits for all schools> Their team will also be supporting the tournament event. Redcar and Cleveland College are kindly hosting the event and their staff will also be supporting the event.
Our Gateshead event this year will be sponsored by Aspire Technology solutions, who will be funding entries and robots for schools from Gateshead. Colleagues from Aspire will also be volunteering to support the event. Gateshead College's Academy for Sport provides an exciting new venue for this event.
If you are interested in finding out more about our work with FIRST LEGO League, or getting involved yourself as a team, volunteer or partner, please get in touch or visit our website.
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