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7.April.2008
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Last week felt like a week of planes, trains and automobiles for me because I was all over the place and very busy keeping all my plates spinning, so to speak.
At the beginning of the week I was down in Knowsley to discuss a new project which is a pathfinder for primary education. These are the kind of schemes that really fit well within the business today, allowing us to research and be innovative in the spaces which we create.
Knowsley have a really interesting vision and after asking us to show them examples of completed buildings in the UK using their model, it is quite clear that there isn’t a primary school in the UK or in the world that matches up with their ideas. What is really exciting is that the transformation which is taking hold within secondary education is now spreading into primary and the whole idea of competency and skills-based learning is becoming more and more prevalent.
On Tuesday evening I was at the Map Building Awards at Grosvenor Hotel. Our Gateshead Schools project was one of three projects to be nominated but unfortunately we were unsuccessful on this occasion. It always amazes me the scale of these events and this one in particular had 1,700 people in attendance.
On Wednesday we held the final of our _space to Think Differently Programme. Some of our team have been working closely with several North East Schools to further the development of the businesses they have set up as part of a Young Enterprise North East scheme. Over a period of five weeks we have had large clutches of students come into the office every Wednesday where they have worked with us on a particular topic, such as Marketing and Sales and Business and Financial Planning. A couple of my co-Directors joined me in the judging and we thoroughly enjoyed our day. The schools and the students were fantastic, with such enthusiasm and positivity and the high standard of work made the judging process very difficult. This is something we will make an annual event and after this year’s success, we will make the 2009 version bigger and better.
We finished the week with a trip to the races on Grand National Day. We booked a room for all of the _space Team at Gosforth Park at Newcastle to celebrate our half year results and whilst it was slightly chillier than the rest of the week, we managed to avoid the snow and an enjoyable time was had by all.