West Kent ISSP participates in the Tunbridge Wells Soapbox Challenge
The West Kent ISSP was involved in the Tunbridge Wells Soapbox Challenge in 2022, racing in the first ever schools’ race.
Held on a reduced course to the main business race, Year 9 and 10 pupils across the schools built a go-kart from an agreed set of plans held centrally by Kent College to race against each other. Each school put together a team of designers and engineers, resourced the materials and built the karts themselves, which had full steering and brake systems.
On the day of the race, six of the partner schools raced by time trial, before the grand final took place between the two schools with the fastest times.
The team from The Judd School took first place, with The Skinners Kent Academy a very close second and Oakley School finishing third. Kent College was fourth, The Malling School was fifth after an early collision with a hay bale and Mascalls Academy came in sixth due to some technical faults with their steering!
Aims
The West Kent Independent State School Partnership (ISSP) is a partnership of eight secondary schools - The Judd School, Kent College Pembury, The Malling School, Mascalls Academy, Oakley School, The Skinners’ School, Skinners’ Kent Academy and Tunbridge Wells Girls’ Grammar School. It has been established with the aim of sharing resources and providing high aspirational learning opportunities for pupils. The projects also enable teachers to
extend their professional development, free from curriculum constraints.
Background
The partnership was established in 2019 after a need was identified by Kent College to share facilities, resources and ideas with other local schools, for staff to network and collaborate with peers from other local schools and to create learning opportunities for high achieving pupils.
The West Kent ISSP was delighted to be compete in the annual Tunbridge Wells Soapbox Challenge in Dunorlan Park on Saturday 25th June racing in the first ever schools’ race. This had been in discussion for several years with the event organisers but due to the pandemic had not happened previously.
Resources
In the months leading up to the race, each school had put together a team of designers and engineers from Years 9 and 10 who sourced the materials and built the karts from an agreed set of plans. While the chassis were all a standard build, students were able to modify and decorate the karts any way they wanted to try and gain that all important competitive advantage. The carts were built on school premises using DT facilities and used teaching staff from either DT or Science to help.
For the most part, the financial contribution was made in 2020, when this race should have gone ahead.
Impact
No formal feedback has been received, however this was a fun event which was enjoyed by all. For this reason, we are hoping to run a similar challenge ourselves in 2023 and more schools will hopefully take part as a result of the positive experience had by the participants.
Pupil Involvement
Six of the partner schools were represented at the Soapbox Challenge: Kent College, The Skinners' Kent Academy, Oakley School, The Judd School, The Malling School and Mascalls Academy.
The pupils were both male and female and were in Years 9 and 10.
Frequency
We hope this will be an annual event, however in 2023 we will run it "in-house", not as part of the Tunbridge Wells Soapbox Challenge, but just an inter-school event organised by ourselves.
