Pupils at Prince Henry's Grammar School in Otley are preparing to become town planners in a five week project exploring their local high street.  

The aim of the project is for students to consider what is meant by town or urban planning, and what planners need to think about when planning for a healthy high street in a place like Otley.  They do this through a variety of problem-solving activities, working as a team to complete diamond ranking, debates and a game devised by Newcastle University.  They consider cross-curricular themes such as healthy eating, social and cultural factors which impact health and lifestyle, and the financial implications of town planning.  They work in groups with allocated roles such as traffic engineer, local parent or business owner, before discovering the real-life outcome to their town planning case, which brings authenticity and a real-world connection to the project.

The project was meant to run in the summer term, but due to the Covid-19 school closures, it has been postponed until later in the autumn term of the new academic year.