Pupils who designed an eco-friendly Peterborough of the future win an iPad for their school

Pupils from Old Fletton Primary School invited judges to take a glimpse into Coville – a 'green' Peterborough of the future – and beat competition from other schools across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough with their winning design.

The competition was launched for online infant, junior and primary school pupils by the Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council education teams at the start of lockdown.

Many schools entered the challenge to win an iPad, creating their own town or community from scratch.

The design brief aimed to combine many areas of the curriculum, including Maths, Art and Geography and required those taking part to carry out research, explore their own creativity and make some really big decisions, such as the name of their town or community and what it would offer its residents.

Mr Pike’s year six class of key worker children at Old Fletton Primary School won with their design for a town called Coville and the 10 minute video presentation they made to advertise the town not only outlined its green credentials but also showed why it would be a great place to live.

The children gave thought to every aspect of the project, from the construction materials, electricity generation, transport and land-use to considering “What makes a good community?” The video can be found on the school website: http://www.oldfletton.org.uk/news/?pid=0&nid=1&storyid=117Lucy, one of the pupils who contributed to Coville, said: “The project was so fun. It was amazing to see it all come together bit by bit to create that brilliant end product. I enjoyed researching all about eco-friendly transport, materials and power sources and learnt a lot of things which I can do at home to be more eco-friendly.”

Eve, said: “Coville is a place that I would love to live in. Hopefully Peterborough can become more and more eco-friendly and I will be doing all that I can to help.”

Jon Lewis, director of education across Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, said: “We had some stunningly creative ideas and it was clear how much thought, effort and imagination that had gone into the entries.

"Some of our favourites included Ashfordville (which arrived complete with an artist’s impression made completely out of Lego), King’s Chilltopia (a desert island town), and Riverdale and Flower Folk (both powered by green energy). But there could be only one winner. Our judging team were particularly impressed with the creative ideas in Coville, but also that the children had thought practically about day to day living for those who lived there.”