CHILDREN as young as three years old have been learning about virtual reality and coding at Beamont Collegiate Academy’s technology club and now the school is inviting the whole community to have a go at building robots and flying drones.

Beamont recently became the first school to be awarded STEM status in the north west, which recognizes excellence in science, technology, engineering and maths.

The school hopes the whole town will benefit from £100,000 worth of new equipment due to be installed in the new school building, which opens in September.

Chris Hillidge, director of STEM at Beamont, said: “If you can’t use technology you are going to be hindered in your career so we use it across all subjects. Technology illiteracy is a problem in all communities.

“It’s a difficult economic situation at the moment so any advantage we can give our kids and community is great.”

The school has rolled out technology in all aspects of education, from using a drone to film races on school sports day to building robots to act in drama classes.

Chris said: “We talk to the kids about things like the iPhone game, Flappy Birds, that could have been coded by a 10-year-old and made millions of pounds – so what’s to stop any of our pupils doing that?

“We have one of the biggest Coder Dojo clubs in the country and my son has been coming along to code there since he was three years old.

“We have five-year-old kids coming in to use our virtual reality headsets to swim underwater with sharks. You can see how much it inspires them.

“There’s careers in the future we probably can’t even dream of now.”

Staff at the school have been working extra hours to help students with STEM subjects and the hard work is paying off as grades have improved dramatically.

The school’s new Fab Lab, where people can make almost anything using 3D printers, laser cutters and engineering equipment, is due to open to the community later this year.

Chris said: “Lots of our future entrepreneurs are coming from more normal backgrounds. I just hope our kids can go into careers that challenge and reward them.”