Education Today Education Today Magazine
The Bee-Bot, an educational robot developed by TTS, a leading supplier of educational resources (part of the RM Group), is celebrating its 20th anniversary during National Coding Week this week.
Bee-Bot is an interactive device for young learners to understand coding, sequencing, and problem-solving. With up to 200 programmable commands, children can direct the Bee-Bot to move forward, backward, left, and right, laying the foundation for computational thinking skills.
For two decades, the Bee-Bot has played a crucial role in teaching early years children about coding and programming in over 90 countries. In the UK, 95% of primary schools use the Bee-Bot, and it’s also featured in curricula across Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. From South Africa to Ukraine, Hong Kong, Russia, and Turkey, the Bee-Bot reaches almost every corner of the globe.
Designed in 2004 in Lewisham, the Bee-Bot was created to help teachers introduce programming and sequencing while meeting curriculum requirements. It has since become a key tool in classrooms worldwide, addressing the need for creative ways to integrate technology into early education. Today, the resource continues to play a vital role in helping children develop the skills needed for the future, especially as 97% of top IT jobs now require AI-related expertise and human oversight to review code and scripts.
Over the past 20 years, numerous global studies have highlighted the Bee-Bot’s impact. Research from the University of Waikato in New Zealand has demonstrated its effectiveness in teaching programming concepts to Māori and Pasifika students. In Estonia, it has supported social skills development for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Additionally, studies on the Bee-Bot’s effectiveness in problem-solving and computational skills have led to its incorporation into national curricula in countries like Chile and Greece.
Jo Hardy, Director of Innovation at RM says: “Bee-Bot’s 20 years of coding emphasises the lasting importance of early programming education. Whilst some may think it’s too early for young children to learn coding, it’s becoming essential for their future. Just like learning a new language, the earlier they start, the better. The Bee-Bot is instrumental in this, offering a screen-free introduction to technology and coding. As AI becomes more integrated into our lives, coding will become increasingly vital. Incorporating these skills into the curriculum will help prepare children for a future where technology plays a significant role.”
