Torbay’s staff surprised students with exciting end of term project

2 min read

The end of the term, especially before Christmas can often be a slow painful affair. Everyone is desperate to go home, including the teachers, so everyone watches the clock tick down.

We decided we didn’t want to do that this year and wanted to go out with a bang!

A team including the Head of School, Head of Co-Curriculars, and our dedicated Heads of Houses hatched a plan to give the students an amazing project for the last two days of school – the task of putting together a fashion brand and show with the final catwalk held at the English Riviera Center. The best part was that we wanted it all to be a surprise for the students.

Which meant we only announced the program during the mid-week assembly.

Students were given the task of putting together a fashion brand and show with the final catwalk show held at the English Riviera Center. Students had to put everything together, including the clothes. For the materials, we gave each house a pile of fabrics and accessories. The music was produced by students using professional software, and we gave them branding material.

The brief that we gave students was to produce clothing and music around the following themes: Christmas, space, recycling and their House. Because this was a competition, it was conducted in total secrecy with each house taking over a different part of the school to work furiously for a day and a half.

Each House had ten minutes on the catwalk to show each of their lines so this meant that they must have an item in each line and have produced the music to play.

The wow factor and what showed off the students amazing outfits was the venue, which had been set up by an audio-visual company with a full catwalk, lighting, and a plasma screen. In the lead up to the show, we took the teams down to give them an idea of what to expect and it either scared them or spurred them on to go back to school to get their Houses working harder.

Students worked right until the very last minute to produce their clothing, music, and artwork. Towards the end, tensions rose as it looked like some wouldn’t get their assignments done before the show. But amazingly, they all finished and got their clothes, art, and music down to the venue just in time.

When we planned this we all worried that students would be too exhausted from the end of the term. We worried that some might give a halfhearted effort but the students amazed us. They truly showed how remarkable they are. We had a great sense of teamwork with everyone pulling together and incredible enthusiasm.

Not only that the quality of the clothes, music, and art that they produced was incredible. Especially when you consider that they only had a day and a half between concept and creation. It was a fantastic way to end the term and despite it being hard work, the sense of achievement that everyone felt was great.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. See the fun for yourself.