Junior School Design Week

At St Paul’s school our vision is to be leaders in Education thinking and practice. As such we have rolled out five unique Learning Realms which support Teaching and Learning. These Learning Realms are Design Thinking, Creativity, Inquiry, Global Sustainability and Entrepreneurialism. As a Design Technology Teacher, Design Thinking fits within our Design Thinking Realm and I am an advocate & firm believer of the learning opportunities that exist within, for our students.

This year I introduced a Design Week into our school calendar not only to support the Learning Realm, Design Thinking, but also to celebrate all things Design. This inaugural event was implemented in our Junior School with a range of activities, displays, competitions and professional developments.

Although our participants were our Junior School students, throughout the week we had Parents, Industry experts, past Students and our Middle School and Senior School student’s mentor and host events. This was an amazing opportunity to forge connections with our wider community but also for our students to collaborate and learn in a real world context.   

Some of the activities throughout the week were:

Junior Architect – Designing a house using Google Sketch Up

Design for Drone - designing a Drone course for a drone to test

Putt for Glory – Designing a life size Putt Putt Golf course

Design from Scratch – Designing a simple game using Scratch coding

Comic Capers – Designing electronic Comic strips

How High Can You Fly – Paper plane ‘design & fly’ competition?

Exciting Electronics – Building simple electronic circuits

Farm Puppets – designing a puppet & a puppet show.

Students across all Year levels in our Junior School had opportunity to participate. Even our Early Learning Centre students didn’t miss out. They participated in seeing how our school Media group put together a News piece and even got to experience the roles in front of and behind the camera. We also had numerous displays of Design Posters, Great Designers and of course, the finale, of showcasing the work of our very clever and determined design students.

Throughout the week students, staff, Parents and Family could also vote on specially printed postcards, what they thought the World’s Greatest Invention was. It was wonderful to see nearly 500 postcards hung and displayed as a Gallery Walk through our Junior School walking paths. It was interesting to read different suggestions across different age levels but the Prep students who voted for the rainbow because it makes the world colourful and pretty was a favourite. 

The week was a wonderful example of how Design has an impact on all of us. How Design is all around us in decisions we make everyday. It was also an example of how through Design, we can share and learn together. In 2018 we hope to expand this event across all our year levels and invite more of our school and local community to take part, to make this even bigger and better!

Justin Hill