| School name: | Weavers school |  |
|---|---|---|
| School/college address: | Weavers Road
Wellingborough Northamptonshire NN14 2JS England | |
| School phone number: | 01933 222830 | |
| Number of pupils in school(s) - male: | 500 | |
| Number of pupils in school(s) - female: | 490 | |
| Number of staff in school(s): | 100 | |
| Name | Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.) | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Mr Peter Guthrie | Learning Leader ICT | Weavers School |
| Teacher of ICT and ICTAC | ||
| Learning Leader of Science | ||
| Headteacher | ||
| Consultant | ||
| Learning Leader Humanities |
The key skills, strengths and roles of each team member are: (200 words)
Topic area of proposal: Generic Issues - Cross-curricular
Briefly, the aim of our proposal is: (50 words)
The project is designed to engage children in learning and to empower them to take ownership of their learning. We intend to challenge students to create a company to build and market a Mars Rover, which they will then present as a pitch to a group of business leaders.?The school is in a period of rapid improvement, but it is still a challenge to engage pupils in their learning. The research and current projects that we have carried out show a strong interest in space and robotics within the student body and this theme, along with the involvement of real world industry, will create a real buzz within the student body.
It is important that students are challenged to take ownership of their learning and develop independent working and learning skills.
A majority of the pupils at the school have little or no real grasp of the world outside of their community. This project is partly geared towards expanding their horizons.?Understand how to manage a project
What a business is looking for in a product and an individual.?The students will be put into groups at the beginning of the year that will take them up to the end of the project.
The task of the groups is to design, build and control a Mars Rover robot. The students will learn about the environment, weather and geological challenges of Mars in Geography. They will learn about space, gravity, pressure, thermodynamics and many other topics in Science and all of these will feed into their design of a Mars Rover. This will also include industry delivered material to aid students in making their decisions. The students will then build and program the robot in ICT and Design Technology, completely customising a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot to meet their requirements. Once the robot is built, they will start to create their marketing materials in ICT and English, before preparing for their trip to the Den of Dragons in English and Drama.
This will enable us to give the students a complete cross-curricular focus and the school to improve its ICTAC provision.
We will use the project to push through the development of the VLE at Weavers, making all lesson materials predominantly online based and available from home. These examples created will be used extensively in our Professional Development programme with other staff.
The project has heavy involvement from industry partners in order to give the students a flavour of the real world, both in terms of working on a daily basis and delivering materials to a client. Industry partners have agreed to give up their time to mentor students, to deliver workshops and become Dragons at the end of the project.
We aim to finish the project with students having a total sense of achievement from their own work and feedback from real people from the world of work, significantly broadening their horizons and building confidence in their abilities.?Peter Guthrie is formerly of Microsoft Consulting and IBM Global Services Managing Consultant who has worked with the US government and Microsoft Partner schools in developing education approaches and technologies for the future. Peter will be creating much of the project and driving it through.
Michael Jones - As a former Royal Navy Logistics Officer, Michael is incredibly organised and will be used to ensure the vision is delivered across the school through his ICTAC role.
Tania Hambly - Learning Leader Science, will be creating the schemes of work for Science delivery and ensure that outcomes meet the needed Science and Engineering outcomes.
Jon Davis - Headteacher, is very keen to drive through this project to provide new opportunities for students to interface with the real world, and engage those students switched off by learning. Jon will be monitoring the project to ensure high quality materials will be delivered and teaching and learning is good or better.
Susan Crouch - Consultant (NIAS), Providing support and guidance from a county level, ensuring the project meets National Curriculum standards.
Michael Stagg - Learning Leader Humanities, will be developing the schemes of work for the Geography section of the project. As a testing specialist, Michael will also be monitoring the continuous assessment in the project to ensure its effectiveness.?Module 1 - Design (weeks 1-7)
ICT - Using Lego Digital Designer to produce a design for a robot using principles learned in science, engineering and geography
Science - The scientific principes that affect the design of a Mars rover including The Solar System, gravity, force, energy, weight, pressure (includes workshop from National Space Centre, Leicester)
Geography - Weather systems, the Mars environment, Mars geology and how these factors affect robot design
D&T - Chassis and suspension design principles, How to engineer a Mars robber (includes workshop from EADS Astrium)
CPD - training on Mindstorms NXT robotics system.
Module 2 - Building (weeks 7-13)
ICT - Building and controlling robots using Mindstorms NXT kits and software
Science - Response to temperature, space flight and its requirements (2 lessons)
D&T - Using the laser cutter, plastic and metal working equipment to produce customisation for the robot to meet the design specifications
This module will include a trip to National Space Centre, Leicester with involvement from EADS Astrium and a chance to use the Bridget Mars Rover.
Module 3 - Marketing (weeks 13-19)ICT - Producing a website for the company and technical skills for associated marketing materials
English - produce company documentation and two posters to advertise the mars rover.
Drama - produce presentation and practice presentational skills ready for the Dragons Den.
Module 4 - Costing (weeks 19-22)
ICT - produce spreadsheet costing plans to outline costs and projected income from the rover project and subsequent sales. This module will teach computer modelling to NC level 6-7.
Module 5 - Dragons Den (weeks 22-24)
ICT lesson time - a panel of 4-5 business leaders from local and national businesses will judge the students' projects. The students will present to the dragons for approximately 5 minutes to persuade them to invest in the company.?GBP
Lego Mindstorms Classroom Set x2 (this includes 16 robotics kits and software) 3000
Plastics and metals for build phase 500
INSET for Humanities teachers
250
INSET for Science teachers (most will be provided in directed time in house)
150
Industry Partner expenses
500
The school operates a RATE system of assessment, with regular assessment in 7 week cycles.
A random selection of 10 students will be interviewed about their participation in the project and its successes and failures at RATE intervals (every 7 weeks) and this will feed into our improvement to the project for its future delivery.
Pupil type to benefit: All
Age range to benefit from proposal: 11-16
Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)
Our reasons for developing this particular proposal: (100 words)
Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)
Outline of how our team would implement our proposal over a period of not more than 24 weeks: (300 words, bulleted lists accepted)
The monitoring procedures we will use during the project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)
The evaluation procedures we will use at the end of the 25 weeks to check the effectiveness of our project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)
Itemised costs of putting your proposal into practice within a maximum budget of £5,000 or equivalent in Euros:
| Budget Item | Cost () |
|---|---|
| TOTAL | 0 |