KS2 Lesson Plan - A27 Road Signs Game

Introduction

This game was developed with engineers from National Highways to showcase the importance of road safety. Students will make road signs and place them appropriately to keep road users safe depending on two different scenarios on the road.

Learning Objectives

  1. Create the correct road signs and place them in the correct order to keep road users safe.

  2. Gain an understanding of the different kinds of jobs involved to keep a busy road safe. 

Guiding Ideas and Questions

  1. Why is it important to keep road users notified of events on the road ahead?

  2. Out of the jobs you've learned about, which one would you most like to do and why?

Performance expectations

In the game, players will be expected to make road signs and place them in the correct location depending on the scenario on the road. They will also be learning about the variety of job roles involved, along with facts about other road schemes. 

Lesson Structure

To help you plan your lesson structure, watch this video and be taken step by step through the game. The below notes provide additional guidance.

Roughly 45-minute-long lesson - can be longer or shorter depending on what works best for the class.

Students have video guides for each lesson, but teachers/facilitators can use this as a guide to follow along with, or if they chose not to use the video guide for some/all the lesson.

The game begins once the students are all logged into Minecraft Education Edition and loaded into the A27 Viaduct Game.

Part 1 –

Students will spawn into the National Highways offices. Here they can interact with the NPCs (non-player characters) who will either give them bits of information or say generic greetings.

Allow them to explore for 5 minutes.

At the end of the 5 minutes get them to go to the corner office, find ‘Andy’, and wait there. They are not to click on the character, or teleport to the scheme, until the next part.

Part 2 –

Get the students to click on Andy. They will be given two options for the next part. They must click the button that says Key Stage 2.

They will then be teleported to the virtual road scheme. Here they should interact with the first NPC who will give them more instructions. They can then go into the portacabin to find the NPCs that give them different facts and also interact with the job role NPCs that are around the map.

Allow them 10 minutes to explore the scheme, talk to all the NPCs who give facts, and all NPCs that represent different job roles.

At the end of the 10 minutes, they can go inside the portacabin to begin the game.

Part 3 –

Allow 25 to 30 minutes to complete the task. They need to use the items in the chest and the loom to create multiple banners that can be used as road signs along the road. Outside the portacabin there are two buttons, one for the ‘car scenario’ and one for the ‘lorry scenario’. When they press the ‘car scenario’ button a broken-down car will appear on the road. They must make enough banners to change all the road signs to left lane closed and right lane open. When they press the ‘lorry scenario’ a lorry will appear on the road with fire and smoke. They must make enough banners to change all the road signs to both lanes closed. For any further explanation please reference the video guide.