Design 4 Real Week

 

Link to case study report on Engaging Places Website for Chesham Bois School

 

Chesham Bois School recently held their Design 4 Real Week and everybody who participated had a fantastic time.The children produced some wonderful designs and aimed to improve the playground environment.

In 2008 pupils and staff worked with a Consultant landscape architect who specialises in School grounds design to carry out a “needs assessment” of the existing grounds and identify what they would like to be able to do in the grounds in the future.  The grant which the school won from CABE paid for further Consultancy time and some limited materials to run the “Design for Real” project.  This enabled the children to build on the ideas generated last year and develop their own “real scale” designs for developing different areas of the grounds.   The Consultant supported the staff and worked with some of the classes during D4R week and will turn the children’s ideas into a series of “design briefs” which will be the basis for future grounds development and fundraising.

 

The objective from CABE was to support projects which enabled pupils to learn about the design process.  At Chesham Bois, all the children were involved, focussing on different areas of the school grounds:

 

        

Year 6: "Taking play into the trees".  How to design physically challenging structures into the sloping area between the playground and the woodland.  This class will also be making models of their ideas.

Year 5: "Design for Social and Imaginative Play". What structures, resources are best to make up imaginary places & games with?

       

Year 4: "Improving the design & management of the existing quiet area deck, benches & steps".  Identifying what activities they would like to do in these places and what would make these spaces better.

Year 3: "Design for ball games".  Addressing a real problem in the school today, this class were challenged to think about how to improve ball games without interfering with other play/games. 

        

Year 2: "Design for Performance".  Children were encouraged to consider where a stage/performance area(s) could go & the factors that would make it a success.

Year 1: "Design for sensory fun and growing food".  This year group examined how to design a fun growing garden area alongside of the playground. 

        

Reception: "Trees".  The plan was for as many children as possible to use the existing woodland adjacent to the school every day as an outdoor resource to experiment with various ideas for the new infant outdoor area.

 

       

All classes recorded their ideas using photos (many taken by the children) and audio. They will produce a series of powerpoint presentations to summarise what they have learned, and explain their ideas