This September, we launched our new whole school project, Bridging Our Future, which built on the work we began in Summer term 2024. Whilst last year, the focus was very much on the art and design element of the architecture of bridges, this project focuses on the engineering aspect, “bridging” the two elements.

We are so proud to live in Sunderland, and this project really develops the sense of pride we have in our local community. We were all so lucky enough to be able to go on a school trip in our first couple of weeks back to school, visiting either the Wearmouth Bridge or the Northern Spire Bridge. We carried out some important fieldwork, including traffic surveys and interviews with people who were crossing the bridge. We met some really interesting people, including architects who are working on the new Sheepfolds development! Even though we have crossed these bridges many times, for many of us this was the first time we had walked across them and we noticed features that we had never paid attention to before.

We have worked closely with Volker Stevin over the last few months, and you may remember that we are the only school in Sunderland who have buried a time capsule underneath the new high-level bridge! We welcomed Volker Stevin back into school to help us launch our project, and we met Harry, a Civil Engineer, and Amelia, a Quantity Surveyor. We then worked on a Civil Engineering challenge, where we used Knex to build a bridge to a specification, which we loved!

We also really enjoyed working on some artwork. We have learned about silhouette art, where we created a background using chalk pastels. Years 3 and 4 created their silhouette using charcoal, and Years 5 and 6 cut their silhouettes out of card. We were thrilled with the way they looked and are excited to put them on display around school!

Check out some more of our photos below: