Year 7 find inspiration at Kew Gardens
13th June 25
Year 7 made the most of the summer sunshine on a recent trip to Kew Gardens.
They were there, in part, to get inspiration for their current Exploration enquiry, ‘How can we redesign the Middle School Common Room?’
Students spent half of the day exploring Kew’s glorious grounds. Highlights included The Hive, a 17-metre installation in a wildflower meadow (where some students held an impromptu yoga session!), and the Treetop Walkway, which offered fantastic views across London and a different perspective on the surrounding foliage.
An educational outing
They also enjoyed an educational session with one of Kew’s on-site teachers, who shared many interesting facts – such as the site holding a Guinness World Record for the largest collection of living plants at a single-site botanic garden.
The session introduced students to some of Kew’s magnificent buildings, including the Temperate House, Palm House and Princess of Wales Conservatory. They discussed elements of the buildings’ designs and why they were suited to the plants they housed.
Students also spent some time sketching the structures and some of the plants, and conceiving their own designs. They will use their learnings to inform their Middle School Common Room project.
Student Lev F said: “I liked that as a group we had the choice of where to go and what to see. It was also interesting to consider the buildings and understand more about the design process.”
Photography enthusiast Thomas B-M took his camera along on the Kew Gardens trip and took some fantastic pictures. A selection features in the gallery below, marked with the yellow ‘taken by a student’ camera icon.
About Explorations
Explorations at The King Alfred School are term-long projects in which students examine a ‘big question’ from a variety of academic subject perspectives.
Delivered alongside traditional single-subject lessons, Explorations are core to our curriculum in the final year of Lower School (Year 6) and the first two years of Upper School (Years 7 and 8).
