Minecraft Education
UPDATE 20/11/23 Licences are now available for our current Year 3 pupils to purchase - closes 27/11/23, parents please check your email!
Thanks some fantastic fundraising in the summer of 2022, we have had access to Minecraft Education Edition for some of our pupils over this academic year.
Here's a very quick video introduction to Minecraft Education Edition.
You can find further information about Minecraft Education Edition on their website.
If you or your child are familiar with Minecraft, this page explains the differences with the Education edition.
Year 6 pupils will able to access Minecraft Education Edition in the autumn term of 2022, Year 5 in the Spring Term 2023 and Year 4 in the summer term 2023. Year 3 will have one lesson towards the end of the summer term to have a quick look at it and try to complete a cyber safety challenge.
All our pupils will have the opportunity to access Minecraft Education from mid-July 2023 if parents wish to purchase an annual licence for their child. You can download and try out Minecraft Education Edition for free and get 10 trial plays without purchasing a licence.
This isn't just about playing! This is another chance to develop some further online citizenship and digital safety skills.
I apologise if your child already needs no encouragement to play a game on a screen. The digital skills many pupils have already acquired through gaming at home is impressive.
Minecraft Education Edition offers children the opportunity to collaborate together through play. If you are concerned about what your child's next steps on their digital journey may be when it comes to gaming, this might just be an opportunity that fits.
Many children already play games online with other players. Parental controls allow these contacts to be locked down to only real friends, or locked down to prevent open communication with strangers, or some children may be playing on their own.
Minecraft Education offers what could be the next step on that gaming journey - just like the learning platform introduces social communication with class email and discussion forums - where they could invite their class in to their Minecraft world, build together and discover new things.
Just like the learning platform, no one from outside the school community can end up inside a Westfield Minecraft Education world, and we can get involved if issues arise as our children are finding their feet in appropriate online collaborative play.
If you want your future teenager to be responsible using SnapChat, Instagram or whatever platform it may be that hasn't been invented yet but will be the latest thing in 7 years’ time, it's important they have a chance to develop digital skills in a meaningful and safe environment for their age. Our learning platform provides this for online communication, and Minecraft Education may provide this for any future budding gamers who need a safe space to share. They also create many special worlds for Education Edition with challenges to complete so it’s great for solo gamers too.
If you think Minecraft Education Edition might be something you're interested in for your child, check the website to download it for free for your devices - iPad, PC, Mac, Chromebook and Android compatible - to check it works. You child may temporarily already have a licence allocated, or is entitled to 10 free trial plays. Their username is like their learning platform username with @westfieldjnr.education added to the end, and the password should be the same as the learning platform password.
If you'd like to give it a go after testing it out, you can purchase an annual licence for a year through the school gateway for £4.99. Licences will be activated by the last day of term and run for a year. As Year 6 will be leaving us soon, it's only available to Year 3, 4 and 5 pupils.
If your child isn't interested in on-screen gaming, that is absolutely fine! I wasn’t as a child. If they are though, this opportunity may be worth considering.
A "Westfield Minecrafters" community will be available on the pupil learning platform when pupils can share tips and discoveries, emersing themselves into developing online collaboration skills whilst playing.
Don't hesitate to get in touch with any questions.
Stuart Wilkinson swilkinson@westfield.cambs.sch.uk
Computing and Online Safety Lead
CEOP Ambassador
Should you wish to allow you child to let others from their class or the school into their Minecraft worlds they create, they can press a button to "host" their world whilst playing and using a share code anyone else with a Westfield Minecraft Licence can enter their world if they know that code. In conjunction with the Learning Platform, where our pupils can already experience a monitored social communication platform through email and discussion forums, this will allow them to explore shared gaming, perhaps with people they would not otherwise play with, with the safety net of knowing it is within the school community and we can get involved if any issues arise. Your child could choose to share their code with a particular friend by email, with their whole class on the class discussion forum.
If you would like to purchase a Minecraft Education licence for your child, please do so via your Schoolcomms Gateway account where it should appear as an option until Tuesday 18th July 2023. Parents are welcome to contact Mr Wilkinson with any questions.