St Luke’s students bid for new pool

Interserve, the international support services and construction group, laid down a challenge for the students of St Luke’s Sports and Science College in Exeter to design, cost, programme and present back a solution for a new sustainable swimming pool to be built within the College campus.

Every year the College holds a Challenge Day for their students where the whole school takes part in activities focused on developing the students’ life skills.

This year’s Challenge Day had all 1000 students working in their tutor groups to produce a bid for a new swimming pool. Students had to consider: the design of the building and the pool; who the end users of the pool would be; what materials they would use; mechanical and electrical elements; the location of the new building; how long the pool would take to be constructed and the sequence of the build. Many students considered other elements including the use of solar thermals and solar panels to heat the pool.

Paul Cockram, operations manager for Interserve in the South West said, “Interserve Construction is delighted to be able to work with St Luke’s Sports and Science College through Business in the Community. This Challenge Day has enabled our team through our ‘Give a Day of Your Time’ initiative, which allows staff time off to undertake community and charity projects, to provide students with both an insight into the various careers available within the construction industry as a whole, whilst promoting life skills such as team work and leadership. The day also provided a link between what the students learn in the classroom in STEM subjects and how science, technology and maths are used everyday within construction. Our staff really enjoyed working with the students and seeing the fantastic presentations that were being prepared. We look forward to naming the winning bid later this month.”

Mr Holt, Headmaster of St Luke’s Sports and Science College commented, “We hold a Challenge Day each year so students of all ages get a chance to work together and practise their teamwork and communication skills alongside their teachers. Interserve worked with us to deliver a brilliant challenge this year and it was fantastic to see just how much our students learnt from working with the experts. As always, our students rose to the challenge and their amazing designs and presentations showed just how ingenious they can be!”

Over the last six months the College and Interserve have formed a partnership through the Business in the Community initiative which has led to work experience opportunities for their students along with the recent Challenge Day event.