Project Based Learning

Gender Equality

School Uniform

  

Over the past three weeks, our group has been working on a project which involved making a simple difference in our school. We decided to go ahead and base our project around the topic of Gender Equality. We want everyone to feel comfortable in their own skin, let alone their own clothes. We specifically focused on the gender titles which are given to most clothing pieces. So, as a group, we decided to try and get rid of the ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ labels from our school uniform, and simply call it, the Hornby High School Uniform. What was successful, was that we have definitely encouraged the point we're trying to make towards our principal and he has suggested taking it even further to the Board of Trustees. The only issue is, is that the next BOT meeting is in February next year, so we couldn't develop our idea any further.

Planning

For us, the planning stage was difficult. We found it hard trying to come up with an idea to put in play which we could work with and actually achieve. Luckily for us, even though the members in our group were absent at different times, we managed to finally come up with an idea - keeping in mind that there would be more absences.

Organising

The organising of our idea, mainly involved us getting in contact with teachers. The help we gained from the teachers was mostly through asking questions on how to take action on our idea. We were directed towards having a meeting with Mr Sutton to discuss this idea. So, with that in mind, an email was sent his way, and a meeting time was made.

Implementing

The beginning of putting this idea into play was when the meeting with Mr Sutton was organised. The organising of a time was hard due to only one of the members being at school for three days, but they decided to just go ahead and have the meeting anyway.

That discussion with Mr Sutton went well and he suggested that we take our idea to the next Board of Trustees meeting. A letter was then written up for that meeting - by Lavisha - and taken back to Mr Sutton to make the idea official. That meeting is actually at the start of next year, so our idea has not yet been implemented and can’t possibly be put in place until that meeting.

Mr Sutton reading our letter

My Logs

Tuesday 29 November

Today, I started to get our work done and focus on my work. We have finally found an idea to put in place for our PBL. We have come up with the idea of taking away the gender labeling on our school uniforms and to simply identify it as the Hornby High School uniform. A thing which enabled me to do this, is the fact that there was no one there to be a distraction. One thing which was a barrier for me during this lesson is the fact that two out of three group members were absent, leaving me to come up with an idea by myself.

Wednesday 30 November

On this day, Lavisha and I got in contact with Miss Aitken to discuss this point. We have confirmed our idea with Miss Aitken and feel reassured to go ahead with this idea. To get to this stage, we sent an email to Miss Aitken asking her if she had spare time to talk to us. We decided that we need to go and speak to Mr Sutton about this idea. A barrier to overcome, is the fact that we did not have enough time to email Mr Sutton that period.

Monday 5 December

Today, my group chose to look through all of our work and complete any which hadn’t been already. Enablers in this situation, is that we had spare time to do anything we needed to do. I didn’t find any barriers in this situation.

  Wednesday 7 December

On this day, Lavisha and I went to Mr Sutton to give him a letter to go to the board. We also started our presentation on slides. Mr Sutton having a few minutes up his sleeve, allowed us to give him the letter. We also found ourselves ahead of time - more than we thought - so we were able to begin our presentation.

Thursday 8 December

This day was the presenting day, and since I completed most of the presentation at home, I felt confident that we would be ready to present. An enabler for a smooth presentation, was that we had time at the start of the day to go over the presentation. One thing that I do wish to have had, is more photo evidence of what we did throughout the three weeks.

Reflection
My group achieved our goals through commitment within the last few lessons we had to complete our action plan. Even though it was rushed, we still manged to complete. The only thing in the way of our goals of the gender labels being removed, was that the BOT meeting is not until next year.

Our idea would hopefully enrich the lives of others if it was to be implemented within the school system. We thought it would enrich the lives of others, in the sense that they would feel comfortable in their own skin. Therefore, feel comfortable in their own uniform. We just want everyone to feel like they are accepted for who they are in our school.

Our group learnt that teamwork really helps. It was difficult being that there were multiple absences within the three short weeks, but we had to work around that, even without much communication between one another. We found that we needed to block out distractions or else we would not be able to finish.

We also learnt that in this situation, it would have been better if we had focused right from the beginning and came up with an idea earlier on. Finding a point earlier would have allowed us to have more time to have the it organised properly, rather than it being rushed.

What we did well, was once we found an idea, we went straight ahead and began to implement it. With the specific point in our heads, we knew what we were doing. I found that we went to the right teachers to help us get to presentation point.

Conclusion

All in all, this topic was quite enjoyable in the sense that we were able to do whatever we wished rather than having to completely follow the path of our teacher's decisions. We are pretty proud of ourselves, completing the project within the due date. But, I would definitely do it again if I had the chance.

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