WGSG’s winning entry from the school’s year eight team, based on the Celebration Cupcakes brief on the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) online schools resource PaperWorks, has earned its Design and Technology department a cheque for £250, while the students involved in designing the packaging will be rewarded with £50 of Waterstones vouchers.
Runners up were St Benedict’s Catholic High School in Warwickshire for its team entry for Green Geraniums, and Derby High School for their take on Celebration Cupcakes. Each school will receive a cheque for £100 to use towards equipment for their Design and Technology departments, with students receiving £20 of Waterstones vouchers.
Aimed at 11 to 14 year-olds (KS3), CPI’s PaperWorks competition was open to any school in the UK. Students were invited to create a logo and brand, then design a packaging solution based on innovative shelf-ready packaging (SRP) requirements that are now being demanded by many customers of the Corrugated Packaging Industry.
The high standard of entries impressed the PaperWorks’ panel of judges, who decided that WGSG’s cupcake logo and imaginative design - of outer corrugated packaging which opens easily to reveal a smaller box inside holding the item - stood out as best in the competition.
CPI’s Director of Packaging Affairs, Andy Barnetson, said:
“Congratulations to WGSG as the quality of entries from all the schools was outstanding. WGSG grasped the brief and showed great understanding of the structural design process for corrugated. They had even given thought on how the packaging could be improved for the future.”
CPI’s PaperWorks Design and Technology for Corrugated Cardboard Packaging module has been developed to fit with modern classroom teaching techniques and facilities, and supports the industry’s aim to counter some of the common misconceptions of what has always been one of the most sustainable and forward-thinking manufacturing sectors in the UK.
In addition to the Design and Technology module, which is featured on the Guardian Education and Times Education Supplement (TES) websites, the award-winning PaperWorks online schools resource (www.paper.org.uk/paperworks) contains the following modules:
• Art and Design: 5 to 7 years
• Science and Technology: 7 to 11 years
• Geography Studies: 11 to 18 years
• Business Studies: 14 to 18 years
PaperWorks has received a 5-star rating on the TES website and was winner of the prestigious Trade Association Forum (TAF) Best Practice Awards Website of the Year 2013. In the next academic year, it will be collaborating with BPIF Cartons and its CartonVille project (www.cartonville.co.uk) to provide an important new resource for schools across the UK to learn about this most popular form of packaging.
A presentation was made to the winning school, Wirral Grammar School for Girls, on 8 July 2014, and runners up Derby High School and St Benedict’s Catholic High School on 7 and 9 July 2014, respectively.
Louise Attwood, Design Technology Teacher at WGSG commented:
“Our girls loved responding to such a creative, yet realistic brief and worked with such enthusiasm towards the final outcome. They gained fantastic experience of working in a team and drawing on each other’s skills and produced an excellent outcome that they are really proud of.”