Research Projects

The students here at Troutbeck use research projects to explore topics that may cross subject boundaries or about which they have a natural curiosity and excitement. A chosen topic will be assessed and approved after which the student researches and generates a draft version. The draft is presented to the class and constructive feedback will be provided by her class peers. Then the hard work begins – to research, design and create a finished product that the whole class can learn from. Each author presents their progress to ensure they are progressing to plan. Recent topics have been wide-ranging and required research inputs from multiple sources.

Such project present the student with a target but do not ‘tell’ them how to complete it – they must work that out for themselves and with help from their peers. Thus we see the innate creativity and design skills our children already have inside them, along with the ability to use a library of books and sources to generate a single view of their topic in their own minds.

The examples that follow show what your primary school child can do given half a chance to excel.

The Zimbabwe Food Web project builds on this student’s love of the wildlife of Zimbabwe: