Ark White City Primary Academy pupils, Charlie Jackson-Pollock, 11, and Raidah Ahmed, 10, were two of more than 40 schoolchildren who took part in the competition. Their winning ideas were 'Jane the Crane', which is 108m tall and will lift a maximum of nine tonnes. 'Ark Titan' is the second crane to be installed on the building site and is 80m tall and will be erected by a giant mobile crane. This crane can lift a maximum weight of 12 tonnes. The cranes will soon wear banners specially produced by building contractors Bowmer & Kirkland. Charlie said he felt "very proud" that the crane would be named Ark Titan. "I got the idea from a TV programme with a character called Titan, and I thought that it would be a good name for one of the cranes." Raidah said she was "very excited" at the prospect of seeing one of the cranes being named Jane the Crane. "I thought it was nice to have a name that rhymed. We've been studying poetry at school, so this seemed perfect."
Daniel Upfield, Principal of Ark White City Primary Academy, was delighted with the choices. "We are all very excited at the prospect of a new school building, and it was great to see so many wonderful suggestions that came from our children to name the two cranes."
Sophie Vellacott, Head of Primary at Ark BDA, visited the site with two pupils, Khayalethu Khumalo (Year Four) and Ashira Knight-Robertson-Nwachukwu (Year One), who will be transitioning to the new school and they were impressed with the size of the development. Sophie said: “The plans for the site are exciting and we will have incredible facilities for our pupils. It will be a privilege to bring together our school communities to a new space where our pupils will thrive.”
Bipin Mepani, Project Manager from Bowmer & Kirkland, said: "We were delighted to offer this opportunity to the local schoolchildren. They are obviously very interested in the work that's going on, and this helps them."