Story: Lisa Swift | Photos: Rohan Francis
Owler Brook pupils have been gaining skills to become better learners, and with their new learning powers they have designed and built a 21st Century City.
For a week in November, Headteacher, Sue Bridges, set children from the whole school the real life challenge of building a new city in the Mayfield Valley, to resolve overcrowding in Sheffield. Sue explained the thinking behind the project:
“The children have learned new ways to approach learning, being ‘resourceful’, ‘resilient’, ‘reflective’ and ‘reciprocal’ during the project. They will then be able to use these skills when learning the curriculum. The project has challenged the children to think and plan for themselves. Every child has been totally engaged and we have seen amazing results.”
The children had lots to say about what they had been doing:
“I’ve been learning to be resilient, which means if I don’t understand something I persevere. I built the Sheffield tower for the city so that people can look around and see the views.” Wakeel
“I built the houses of Parliament, where they have meetings. We used boxes and painted it, and Waleed worked on it too.” Naser
“I made a cinema, I used a box and made a curtain, and used a picture for the screen. And I made chairs that slide out. We needed things in the city for entertainment, so that people don’t get bored.” Heba
“I made a zoo with parrots, a lion and a giraffe. It makes it exciting because kids want to see animals and feed them” Aisher
“I helped build the Sheffield tower, we used material that you dip in water and then it dries. We were reflective when we had done the work, which means you learn from your mistakes. We would use different paint next time.” Zulkernan
“We made a caravan and a police helicopter, we used a carton painted black and put on a blue light. We worked as a team and were reciprocal.” Abdul
“I think it’s fantastic, I didn’t think it would be that big. We have robots cleaning the city and robots in the library, robots go to get the books"
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