Tips for running the day

II divided the students into teams of five, the teams were chosen by me to ensure a spread of ability and of ‘challenging’ students.

Students worked in rooms equipped with suitable IT resources for research, publishing and CAD. They also had paper, mounting card and a selection of pens, markers and crayons.

Each room competed to find a winner and then all the students gathered to see the room winners present again to decide on the overall winner.

Supervising teachers can act as clients and judges but the students respond well to experts from outside the school, say from local business.

Students also respond well to receiving certificates and prizes.

You can make the budgeting more complex by announcing at a certain point during the morning, that due to a world rubber shortage, tyre prices have doubled or that due to inflationary wage demands, manufacturing costs have increased.