Bow School Students Design Their 21st Century Community

Citizen School Alliance member Bow School of Maths and Computing has been working with London Citizens over the past 5 months to bring active citizenship into the classroom.

The culmination of the project was on Thursday 2nd July, when Tower Hamlets Mayor, Councillor Ahmed Omer, joined head teacher Beverley Dobson and Year 8 students to officially open the Parmiter Street ‘21st Century Tower Hamlets’ exhibition – showcasing students’ ideas and designs for a 21st century logo for Tower Hamlets.



Students worked in Citizenship and Art lessons to learn about the history of Tower Hamlets, and analyse it as a modern-day London borough. In art, students designed new logos to represent its history, entrepreneurial spirit and its diversity – while back in Citizenship lessons, students prepared speeches to persuade others that their logo was the one that deserved to feature in the exhibition.

On June 17th the Mayor and fellow councillor Azizur Khan came to the school to act as Dragons for the day, analysing the students’ logos, hearing their speeches, and deciding which designs would get through to be part of the real-life exhibition on Parmiter Street.

Such was the standard of the students' designs and speeches that ultimately all of the students’ work was given the green light by the Mayor. And just two weeks later, the same boys were outside the Parmiter Street development, painting their logos for all to see. After four hours of hard work, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets and housing developers Family Mosaic paid a visit to congratulate the boys’ work and ensure the exhibition received serious media attention in the council’s East End Life publication.

The real-life nature of the exhibition, and the involvement of real politicians from their area gave the boys involved extra motivation to succeed. The logos and speeches speak for themselves. It’s the kind of opportunity the Citizen Schools Alliance affords its member schools. Get in touch for more information on how your school can make community-based active citizenship a reality.