Roehampton students work with local school children to design a 'City of Tomorrow'

  • Monday, June 19, 2017

A group of 175 pupils aged between 8-14 years from seven local schools attended the ‘City of Tomorrow’ event at University of Roehampton, where they were tasked with applying their knowledge of science, technology and engineering to create their own vision of a city.

The event is designed to highlight career pathways in construction, engineering and technology and promotes good citizenship. Mixed groups of Year 6 and 7 pupils work in small groups to develop and construct their idea of the perfect city. This helps the Year 6s make the transition from primary into secondary school as they feel more confident having spoken to the Year 7s. The day culminated with an exhibition and prize presentation by TV presenter Maggie Philbin, where awards were given across a range of categories including:

  • Best business space
  • Best domestic space
  • Best education space
  • Best recreational space
  • Best health and wellbeing space
  • Best outside space
  • Most environmentally friendly building
  • Most innovative building
  • Most accessible building

The University's secondary teacher trainees, school colleagues, secondary subject tutors and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) ambassadors have been involved throughout the day.

Ruth Seabrook, Secondary ITE Partnership Lead at Roehampton comments: ‘The University of Roehampton started life as a teacher training college and education is something we're truly committed to and therefore supporting this initiative to get more children interested in topics like science and technology is important to drive and be a part of.

‘TeenTech is a great way to encourage school children to engage with STEM subjects in a creative and fun way. It helps to build students confidence and team working skills, all-the-while highlighting a range of careers for the future.

‘From our perspective, it's been excellent for our trainee teachers; giving them a thorough understanding of how to work in a cross curricular environment while exploring creative teaching options’.


One trainee teacher commented that ‘The TeenTech event was a great opportunity to ease anxious year 6 students into secondary school and encourage excellent team working. It provided me with some ideas for different teaching methods, which I look forward to using in my school’.

The schools partaking include Richard Challoner, Waldegrave, Kingsley Academy, Raynes Park, St Andrews, Heathmere Primary and Southmead Primary.

For more information on our Initial Teacher Education programmes please click here. 

To find out more about the TeenTech initative, please visit their website.