Birmingham school pupils get top marks for playful design contest
Another Wicksteed Play Team has come up trumps on the ideas front. Budding young designers at a Birmingham primary school were selected to don their creative thinking caps for a recent playground project, which also involved using their business skills… well, it’s important to start early!
The pupils at Selly Oak Primary School were asked to come up with their own play schemes by sports and play equipment manufacturer Wicksteed Playscapes – considering the whole process from budget and accessibility, to play value and location – with prizes for the winning creation.
The kids gained inspiration from Wicksteed’s latest product book and used cut-outs of the play apparatus to create their own playscapes. Putting budgetary aspects into the mix was an important part of the whole project so the kids had to consider cost implications, too.
Divided into two different groups, the enthusiastic eight and nine year olds brainstormed ideas with each other and with Wicksteed ‘teachers’ Stuart Wetherell and Rob Heard before committing their concepts to paper.
The idea behind the project was to engage the students in team building and forward- thinking exercises, encouraging them to plan ahead and speculate about all angles of the task at hand.
“The children were so full of excellent ideas it was hard to decide who to award the prize to,” said Stuart. “In the end, we had to leave it to the teachers to decide!”