Winning group - Angelina Wong, Alana Green, Liv Coles and Katie Partridge in 9RML

On Wednesday 26th June, as part of the IB Day, Year 9 participated in a Dragon’s Den inspired project, whereby they were asked to design a project to make the world a better place.

The students worked in groups of four to create a new and innovative product, which would improve the quality of life of people from around the world. Students then had the option to create marketing material or a prototype and then had to present first to their forms, and then the winning groups in front of their year group and a panel of judges. Each group were judged on how well they had project fulfilled the attributes of the IB learner profile, which includes being open-minded, inquiring, principled and caring.

Katie P from the winning team, describes their product, and her reflections on the day:

“During IB day, we developed the product: Anti Fall Damage, which is discreet, lightweight clothing that inflates upon impact, such as when an individual falls over.  We felt this was a good idea as it would help vulnerable communities such as the elderly and people with disabilities, particularly as we discovered from the 2021 census that there are over 3 million people in the UK over the age of 80, and it is estimated that 1.8 million elderly people have at least one fall a year.

“We recognised the issue of detrimental injuries and wanted to invent a way to prevent this with impact ready clothing. The clothing targets the main contact places within falls, this also means the airbags aren’t visible and protection goes unnoticed as possible and is as comfortable as possible. We feel, IB day really enhanced our teamwork skills by working together to get our best ideas simultaneously.”