Newport's Construction Experts!

The construction challenge was organised by First Partnership, an organisation aimed at linking industry and education. The competition was aimed at able year 6 children with the purpose of challenging them with tasks with a “real world” application and to raise awareness of the skills needed for careers within the construction industry.

Ten schools from North East Hampshire were invited took part in the event held at Westfields Junior School in Yateley on 16th October 2007.

Our team took on roles of a:
• Planner
• Quantity Surveyor
• General Foreman
• Project Manager
• Site Engineer

The challenge was to build an exact replica of a model building and submit an exact costing and design brief.

However, only the project manager, James, and the site engineer, Warren, were allowed to see the model in the architect’s office for just a few minutes.

Our teamwork was excellent, everybody cooperated brilliantly and listened carefully to the project /site engineer as they tried to remember all the details of the model-shape of bricks, colour, position and layout of the model.

The planners, Alice and Deni, then drew up an accurate replica of the building. Gaby in her role of quantity surveyor had to interpret the plan and order and cost all the correct supplies.

Only the general foreman, Ben, was allowed to construct the model. The rest of the Newport team looked on with intense concentration clearly evident in their expression on their faces.

Result
Once the costings had been submitted and the model building constructed the judges examined all the teams’ entries. Time penalties and fines were added to those teams that had requested extra visits to view the model building and had over ordered supplies. Each team then had to devise a company name and give a short presentation highlighting the key skills they had developed during the session and how they could have improved.

The Newport team were awarded runner up to All Saints School in Fleet, as they had an exremely accurate model that was cost effective. Only one brick separated the two teams!

Very well done to the Newport team who were a real credit to the school.
The Newport Team:
James
Ben
Gaby
Alice
Deni
Warren

Comments from the team:

“I learnt to be more confident in a speaking to a crowd of people and to be myself”.
“I enjoyed the challenge because it was fun and taught me to work in a team and cooperate with other people”.
“I enjoyed making the model because it showed us how to work as a team. My advice to other children is not to spend too much time planning!”