On 30th June six Year 9 students - Danny, Tabitha, Hailey, Paige, Izzie and Thomas - represented Sponne School at the National Finals of the Big Ideas programme at the Houses of Parliament in London. From 149 entries across the country, they made it to the final 12 groups. We came third! This is an amazing achievement for our students, especially as this was the first time we had entered the competition.
Their idea, ECO B.O.M.B., was to use drones to deploy a ‘bomb’ filled with Kapok tree seeds, to help the reforestation of the Amazon Rainforests. The students had already been to regional finals at Leicester University to reach this stage.
We would like to thank the following, who supported the students:
@IM Properties - sponsoring the whole event, being mentors to the teams and providing our
mascot cardboard cutouts
@Bluewirehub - for helping the students understand drone technology
@Lumtenum - for sponsoring the trip to London and giving suggestions for improvements to
the seed deployment and the use of fibre optics with drones.
Mr Lopes - for helping with the B.O.M.B. prototype
We are incredibly proud of our students, who represented themselves and Sponne in such a fantastic way. They are an inspiration to other students and show that the ideas of our young people could really make a difference and perhaps find solutions to the issues our world currently faces. If you want to find out more about the finals and the Big Ideas Programme, please use this link: https://solutionsfortheplanet.co.uk/the-big-ideas-competition-2026-national-final-the-results/
