Pupils and teachers get creative in the ‘School We’d Like’ competition
If you were given £5,000, how would you improve your school? Creativity and the desire for the outdoors showed in entries from participating British schools in The Guardian Teacher Network / Zurich Municipal’s competition.
The competition was intended to have school communities put their heads together and think of ways to improve their schools. These ideas should be possible for other schools to copy so that these will spread and more pupils can benefit.
A couple of the creative, inspiring and exciting ideas include planting mature trees and having sling walkways across their tops to develop outdoor learning spaces and making the school grounds into a handy overnight camping area. Many entries proposed for outdoor classrooms – whether on the ground or on tops of trees.
Photo credit: The Guardian
The ideas were quite useful and fun. One pupil proposed cutting down big trees so the playground can be expanded to make more space for football. A number of schools wanted to give their toilets a makeover. Some even had business plans involved. Painting jobs were also popular – a big secondary school proposed painting the floor to help people find their way around, and bringing colour to dreary tunnels linking campuses from one another.
The winning primary, secondary and special school will each receive prize money of £5,000. As of the moment, the competition is on its regional finals, with four final teams moving on to the final at The Guardian in Kings Place.
What are your ideas for this competition? Know of a school that could make good use of £5,000 to make it a better place for learning? Let me know your thoughts.
More information:
Read the full article about the competition and the names of the shortlisting judges on this page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/jan/21/school-we-d-like-competition-entries-overview