Carlingford West Public School, Sydney
"When I first looked at this MakeShop project — metal jewellery — other projects were starting to eat into my curriculum time. So I couldn’t find time for it. That’s when I thought, how can we build this into something more while making it realistic for the students? How can I incorporate as many KLAs (Key Learning Areas) into it that I can?... This has been a really good learning opportunity for students – it had more opportunities than I even realised... Students that I had trouble engaging – they surprised me the most. Because it was non-traditional learning, they got up and jumped in... There was one student whose pendant’s design kept getting knocked back (as not being physically suitable for printing) and he was getting really frustrated. When he finally got it right, he said, ‘Mr Drain, thank you so much for pushing me – you have no idea how good I feel right now.'"