Stourport pupils win award for creating voice-activated spell checker
Bright sparks at a Stourport primary school beat hundreds of children from across Wyre Forest to win a competition to find world-changing ideas.
Judges of the One Big Idea project awarded first place to a year four team from St Bartholomew's CE Primary School, plus £1,000 for books and library resources.
Harry Furnival, Jasmine Ashdown, Ava Wilkes and Archie May came up with a Know It All Pen, with a built-in voice-activated spell checker to help pupils use the correct spelling of words in their writing.
Several hundred children from the Severn Academies Educational Trust primary schools took part in the project, designed to encourage creative thinking, entrepreneurship and further collaborative work between the trust schools.
Project coordinator Adrian McLean, trust leader for inclusion and safeguarding, said: "This year, the children took their ideas to the next level, building on the concept they were first introduced to last year.
"The six finalists were amazing in their passion to solve a problem important to them. The St Bart’s team were exceptional in making their idea come to life for the judges. They were super creative and simply phenomenal."
Other finalists were teams from Far Forest Lea Memorial CE Primary with Freddie Frog, a powerful water vacuum to remove water from flooded areas and Hartlebury CE Primary with a toy collecting device called the McLean Machine.
Stourport Primary Academy pupils came up with the Plastic Pioneers movement to recycle plastics into everyday items, while finalists at Wilden All Saints CE Primary designed an Enviro-fit School Gym to generate electricity for the school.
Chris King, trust chief executive, said: “For the second year, our children have come up with the most amazing ideas. They are the entrepreneurs and designers of the future."
