Oman education: Isabella Dakin secures first place in Dragon’s Den Project

Muscat: Isabella Dakin, a Year 6 student secured the first place in the Dragon’s Den Project at the British School Muscat (BSM) on Monday afternoon.
Topic of this project was Plastic Ocean. “This project is a wonderful way for children to develop skills in many areas and to apply their knowledge. It has allowed the children to demonstrate what resourceful learners they are by displaying the school’s learning ethos of curiosity, resilience, reflection and motivation,” Tamsin Turner, Primary School Humanities Coordinator, British School Muscat told Times of Oman.
“This is part of our humanities work which looks at environmental concerns,” she added.
According to her the challenge for children was to enter The Dragons’ Den for their notional chance to win $1 billion to improve a current environmental concern or issue. The presentations were made before a panel of Dragons, members of British School Muscat staff and their classmates.
Dragons, the judges of the event were Kai Vacher, Principal of British School Muscat; Haynes-McCartney, Head of Primary School; Nadia Megnin, Head of Senior School; Jonathan Turner Managing Director of Masirah International Marine and Technical Services. There were four classes of 22 children in Year 6 – total 88 pupils in the Year Group. The children hoped to persuade the Dragons to part with $1 billion to fund their solution.
“The top two presentations from each class went through to today’s final,” Turner said.
Finalists got three minutes to speak and two minutes to answer questions following their presentations. According to the teachers, the students spoke about some amazing ways to save the environment. While Alex Mallalah spoke about clean drinking water in Africa, Evie Winning spoke about Every Drop of Water counts and Frankie King spoke on Clean Water to all.
The other finalist Natalya Henein shared her thoughts on over fishing and how to control wile Elizabeth Johnson spoke about deforestation. Annabelle Ford spoke about plastic pollution and James Black spoke about clean energy. James secured second place while the third position was shared between Annabelle Ford and Alex Mallalah.