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The Herald
Bulawayo Bureau
A Form Four pupil at Bulawayo’s Founders High School, Wayne Ndlovu, was fatally knifed on Monday afternoon in a suspected turf war involving boys from Hamilton High School and Founders in the city.
Wayne who was good in science subjects aspired to be a doctor upon completion of his A’Level studies.
He was stabbed on the neck. The boy was pronounced dead upon arrival at the United Bulawayo Hospitals. Two boys from Hamilton High School have since been arrested in connection with Wayne’s death and they are assisting police with investigations.
The death is a culmination of a series of turf wars pitting pupils from schools in the city.
Wayne’s mother, Ms Nomatter Ndlovu said her family is devastated following the brutal killing of her first-born child.
She described Wayne as a brilliant and academically gifted boy whose future was promising.
“He was an intelligent child, very bright, and could easily adjust to any kind of situation. He did not discriminate against anyone and loved sport and school. He actually wanted to be a doctor in life and that is why he was studying sciences,” she said.
“Now that things have gone this way we don’t know what we are going to do about his shattered dreams. We were actually imagining him as a practicing doctor assisting the community.”
Ms Ndlovu said her son had a heart of gold and a spirit of humanity.
She said soon after the family received the sad news shortly after 4pm on Monday, his father immediately rushed to the scene.
Ms Ndlovu said she was told that her son was attacked while trying to rescue his friend who was being attacked by bullies.
“I don’t know what was happening, but what we are being told is that Wayne was coming from a different direction when he found his friend being bullied by the Hamilton boys. He tried to rescue the friend and in the process of doing so, that is when he was stabbed,” she said.
Ms Ndlovu said soon after the incident, other pupils rushed to inform the school headmistress and she rushed to the scene.
The school head informed the parents and the boy’s father rushed to the scene.
“When his father arrived at the spot, he tried to render first aid before the arrival of an ambulance. While in the ambulance, the father said, Wayne tried to murmur some inaudible words,” said Ms Ndlovu.
Ms Ndlovu said when she arrived at the hospital, her husband was bloodied
“When I arrived at UBH I found my husband outside just walking around, I didn’t ask him about the situation. I just kept quiet and when he spoke he said the boy could die and I was so touched,” she said.
Ms Ndlovu said they watched helplessly as nurses frantically tried to save their son.
“There were so many nurses in the room running around as they tried to save my son. He was put on oxygen, but deep down in my heart, I could feel that something was not right,” she said.
“Minutes later, nurses opened the curtain for us to see our son lying dead on a blood-stained bed and they were drops of blood on the floor.”
Ms Ndlovu urged authorities to address the issue of turf wars in schools.
Bulawayo deputy police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Nomalanga Msebele said two pupils have since been arrested in connection with Wayne’s murder.
“I can confirm that as police, we are attending to a case where a 16-year-old pupil from Founders High School was stabbed to death during a fight involving learners from Founders High School and Hamilton High School,” she said.
Asst Insp Msebele said the deceased approached boys from Hamilton and asked them why they had attacked his friend resulting in a fight.
“An altercation ensued resulting in the boys from Hamilton stabbing the deceased in the neck before they fled from the scene. A report was made to us leading to the arrest of two Hamilton High School pupils,” said the police spokesperson.
Asst Insp Msebele said police are concerned about cases of violence recorded in several schools in the city.
She said singled out Milton, Gifford, and Msiteli High Schools as schools where bullying is rampant.
“We encourage school authorities to report all bullying cases to the police. We have done several campaigns to discourage bullying in schools and continue to engage them to address the problem,” said Asst Insp Msebele.
“It is quite disturbing to note that some pupils are carrying dangerous weapons to schools.”
Adult learners earning their high school credentials in Massachusetts can now take the high school equivalency exam for free.
The state has been covering the cost of the General Educational Development exam, or GED, since fall of 2022. Beginning this week, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education started covering the cost for the state's other recognized option, known as the High School Equivalency Test, or HiSET, according to a news release Thursday.
While classes for adult learners are free, earning the full high school credential requires that students pass a battery of tests, which could cost up to $143 per test, according to DESE. Officials say the goal is to remove the financial barriers for adults.
"You can imagine that there are some folks who forgo the tests for other basic needs," said Cliff Chuang, Massachusetts' senior associate commissioner of education. "This really is going to help remove that barrier and not be the reason someone is not getting the credential."
The move will cost the department about $800,000 per year, which will come out of the state's $60 million annual budget for adult education.
According to DESE, about 1 million adults in Massachusetts don't have a high school credential. Roughly 3,000 people attain a high school equivalency credential annually in the state.
Massachusetts' secretary of education, Patrick Tutwiler, said he hopes this move will convince more students to take advantage of adult education programming.
“I’m proud to see Massachusetts take this step to invest in our less traditional students, and I am encouraged that this will allow even more adult learners to earn their high school equivalency credential,” he said in a statement.
In 2021 about 9,000 adults in Massachusetts took a high school equivalency test. State education leaders hope that number will increase now that this additional cost barrier has been removed.
Inside the beating heart of many students and a large number of learners lies an inner cheat. To get passing grades, every effort will be made to do the least to achieve the most. Efforts to subvert the central class examination are the stuff of legend: discreetly written notes on hands, palms and other body parts; secreted pieces of paper; messages concealed in various vessels that may be smuggled into the hall.
In the fight against such cunning devilry, vigilant invigilators have pursued such efforts with eagle eyes, attempting to ensure the integrity of the exam answers. Of late, the broader role of invigilation has become more pertinent than ever, notably in the face of artificial intelligence technologies that seek to undermine the very idea of the challenging, individually researched answer.
ChatGPT, a language processing tool powered by comprehensive, deep AI technology, offers nightmares for instructors and pedagogues in spades. Myopic university managers will be slower to reach any coherent conclusions about this large language model (LLM), as they always are. But given the diminishing quality of degrees and their supposed usefulness, not to mention running costs and the temptations offered by educational alternatives, this will come as a particularly unwelcome headache.
For the student and anyone with an inner desire to labour less for larger returns, it is nothing less than a dream, a magisterial shortcut. Essays, papers, memoranda, and drafted speeches can all be crafted by this supercomputing wonder. It has already shaken educational establishments and even made Elon Musk predict that humanity was “not far from dangerously strong AI.”
Launched on November 30, 2022 and the creative offspring of AI research company OpenAI, ChatGPT is a work in progress, open to the curious, the lazy and the opportunistic. Within the first five days of launching, it had 1 million users on the books.
It did not take long for the chatbot to do its work. In January, the Manchester Evening News reported that a student by the name of Pieter Snepvangers had asked the bot to put together a 2,000-word essay on social policy. Within 20 minutes, the work was done. While not stellar, Snepvangers was informed by a lecturer that the essay could pass with a grade of 53. In the words of the instructor, “This could be a student who has attended classes and has engaged with the course of the unit. The content of the essay, this could be somebody that’s been in my classes. It wasn’t the most terrible in terms of content.”
On receiving the assessment from the lecturer, Snepvangers could only marvel at what the site had achieved: “20 minutes to produce an essay which is supposed to demonstrate 12 weeks of learning. Not bad.”
The trumpets of doomsday have been sounded. Beverly Pell, an advisor on technology for children and a former teacher based in Irvine, California, saw few rays of hope with the arrival of the ChatGPT bot, notably on the issue of performing genuine research. “There’s a lot of cheap knowledge out there,” she told Forbes. “I think this could be a danger in education, and it’s not good for kids.”
Charging the barricades of such AI-driven knowledge forms tends to ignore the fundamental reality that the cheat or student assistance industry in education has been around for years. The armies of ghost writers scattered across the globe willing to receive money for writing the papers of others have not disappeared. The website stocked with readily minted essays has been ubiquitous.
More recently, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, online sites such as Chegg offer around the clock assistance in terms of homework, exam preparation and writing support. The Photomath app, to take another striking example, has seen over 300 million downloads since coming into use in 2014. It enables students to take a picture of their maths problems and seek answers.
Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun is also less than impressed by claims that ChatGPT is somehow bomb blowing in its effects. “In terms of underlying techniques, ChatGPT is not particularly innovative.” It was merely “well put together” and “nicely done.” Half a dozen startups, in addition to Google and Meta, were using “very similar technology” to OpenAI.
It is worth noting that universities, colleges and learning institutions constitute one aspect of the information cosmos that is ChatGPT. The chatbot continues to receive queries of varying degrees of banality. Questions range from astrology to suggest gift ideas to friends and family.
Then come those unfortunate legislators who struggle with the language of writing bills for legal passage. “When asked to write a bill for a member for Congress that would make changes to federal student aid programs,” writesMichael Brickman of the American Enterprise Institute, “ChatGPT produced one in seconds. When asked for Republican and Democrat amendments focused on consumer protection, it delivered a credible version that each party might conceivably offer.”
What are the options in terms of combating such usurping gremlins? For one, its gratis status is bound to change once the research phase is concluded. And, at least for the moment, the website has a service that occasionally overloads and impairs responses to questions users may pose. To cope with this, OpenAI created ChatGPT Plus, a plan that enables users to access material even during those rocky fluctuations.
Another relevant response is to keep a keen eye on the curriculum itself. In the words of Jason Wingard, a self-professed “global thought leader”, “The key to retaining the value of a degree from our institution is ensuring your graduates have the skills to change with any market. This means that we must tweak and adapt our curriculum at leastevery single year.” Wingard’s skills in global thought leadership do not seem particularly attuned to how university curricula, and incompetent reformers who insist on changing them, function.
There are also more rudimentary, logistical matters one can adopt. A return to pen and paper could be a start. Or perhaps the typewriter. These will be disliked and howled at by those narcotised by the screen, online solutions and finger tapping. But the modern educator will have to face facts. For all the remarkable power available through AI and machine related learning, we are also seeing a machine-automated form of unlearning, free of curiosity. Some branches off the tree of knowledge are threatening to fall off.
Road safety experts at Road Angel have analysed Government research to uncover the main reasons British motorists fail their driving test. With pass rates at less than 50 percent, learners would benefit from focussing on the most common reasons for failing to better their chances of success.
While many of these errors might be considered obvious to both novice and experienced drivers alike it is surprising how many learner drivers fall foul of them.
Fortunately, many of these skills are easy to master - like checking mirrors more often and driving in the middle of the lane.
But some of the other common mistakes made by learner drivers might take a little longer to grasp - such as reverse bay parking and hill starts.
If learners are making these common mistakes during lessons, they will be unlikely to pass and need more practice to be safe on the roads.
READ MORE: Drivers should fill fuel tanks to the brim or risk costly damage
Other common mistakes for failure include incorrectly responding to traffic lights and signs, bad observations, and wrong positioning when turning right.
Gary Digva, the founder of Road Angel, said: “It can be easy to make a mistake on the day of your driving test which can cause you to fail.
“Some of these common errors may be considered obvious but under the pressure of a driving test, it’s easy for even the best learners to make one of these 10 mistakes.
“Getting in as much practice as possible beforehand will Excellerate your driving skills and confidence behind the wheel, which will help control test day nerves and avoid making these common errors.
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“And if you’re regularly making these mistakes during your driving lessons your instructor will most likely recommend you not to take your test yet as you’re not quite ready.
“Although it can be upsetting to hear that you’ve failed your driving test, it just means you need a bit more practice to be fully safe on the roads.”
Learners won’t pass their test if they don’t check their mirrors often enough - particularly before signalling changing speed or direction. Mirrors must be checked along roundabouts and when changing lanes - especially on the dual carriageway to avoid other cars from having to slow down.
Not making effective observations left and right when learners are approaching junctions is one of the most common reasons why pupils fail their driving test. Every time the car enters a new road the driver must ensure it is safe to proceed. This also applies when entering a roundabout, slip road and looking ahead at crossroads.
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Throughout the test learners often fail for having poor road positioning during normal driving. This includes using the right-hand lane unnecessarily with no attempt to move over to the left and not driving in the middle of the road.
Any time a learner driver moves off, they must do a six-point check to ensure it is completely safe to continue. Along with checking their mirrors, pupils must ensure to effectively check their blind spots, indicate if necessary, and not enter into the path of any approaching vehicles.
Learner drivers will fail if they don’t respond correctly to traffic lights - one of the most common reasons is from ignoring or not anticipating a red light and thus attempting to proceed through it. Pupils could also fail from entering the box reserved for cyclists and blocking traffic when waiting to turn right at the repeater lights.
Learners must understand and quickly react to all traffic signs when driving, or else risk failing their test. Some of the most common signs that learners do not respond to are ignoring "stop" or "no entry" signs, speed limit changes and incorrectly driving in bus lanes when the time is displayed.
Some learner drivers fail to position the car as close to the centre of the road as is safely possible. If the car is positioned too far to the left when turning right, traffic may be obstructed causing delays. This also includes incorrectly positioning in the left-hand lane on a roundabout when wanting to turn right, causing confusion to other drivers.
Hill starts are one of the most common reasons for learners to fail their driving test. Rolling back on a hill shows that the learner doesn’t have full control of the car. Repeatedly stalling or not selecting a gear when moving off are also common reasons for failing.
Not having full and proper control of the car when steering is one of the common reasons for failing the driving test. Some steering issues include not steering enough around a bend, steering too late when turning into a minor road and mounting the pavement when pulling up on the left or parking.
Many learners will be asked to parallel park or reverse into a bay during their driving test, however, this is a common failure point for pupils. Popular reasons for failing include losing control of the car when attempting a reverse bay park, or ending up outside of the bay lines. Another reason for failure is often also taking too many attempts to park or ending up with the wheels on the pavement.
Originally developed and launched in March of 2020, our trunk on Central America has been revamped over the past few months. This time around, learners solve clues that take them from 3D objects to exciting Smithsonian Libraries and Archives images to Folkways music recordings, all while learning about family histories from the point of view of middle school aged kids. The trunk, titled Nice Tú Meet You, focuses on Latinx cultures from Central America and the Caribbean through the music and storytelling. Four fictional teen narrators take learners along on their discovery of their families' histories, allowing participants to ask questions about their own heritage. Students will also use technology to discover real-world stories about the connection between bananas and the Panama Canal, the history of corn in Mesoamerica, the blending of religions in the Caribbean, and the significance of Bomba music in Puerto Rico.
The magic “talking box” is the centerpiece of the Nice Tú Meet You Traveling Trunk. This product comes from a British company called Museum In a Box. It is equipped with an RFID reader that communicates with NFC stickers embedded on the objects and cards. Place any item in the trunk on the box and the room is filled with stories and songs of history. In the future, we plan to work with the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office to create 3D printed versions of objects from the Smithsonian’s collection, tightening the connection between classrooms and museum education.
As former classroom educators, we recognized the importance of ease when it comes to the use of an outside educational resource. It was a top priority to create a resource that seamlessly fit into classrooms and provided the necessary tools for instruction. Early on, we identified points from the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies to focus on. The trunk comes with a how-to guide that offers multiple ideas for implementing the many included activities. As such, educators are empowered with the ability to use the trunk in a way that best suits them – whole group, small group, one section at a time – without losing any of the trunk’s intended objectives. Each trunk also comes with ‘educator fact sheets’ to quickly bring educators up to speed on the specifics of the trunk’s content. We also work with an evaluator and educator focus groups to help us create a program fit for a middle school classroom and will be tweaking along the way to accommodate feedback from learners and educators across the country.
Following this will be a trunk dedicated to solving a mystery, highlighting the importance of Information Literacy and finally, an art-based exploration trunk in partnership with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
To borrow Nice Tú Meet You, head over to our lending system and put in a request. If you need some assistance with the process, check out our how-to tips. If you have any questions or just want to get alerted to when the next Trunk comes out, drops us a line at [email protected]. Happy Traveling!
Driving tests can be a frightening experience, and it doesn't help that some who are taking their tests are worrying about things that ultimately aren't true.
According to the DVSA, there are certain common myths that learner drivers shouldn't buy into ahead of their tests. For example, a driver will not fail if they don't 'exaggerate' a head turn when checking a mirror.
Buying into these myths could put unnecessary pressure on learner motorists, which may in-turn lead to a more significant mistake which fails them on their test.
According to the motoring experts these are some of the driving test myths that you shouldn't be worrying about, since they aren't true:
It comes after the DVSA has launched their 'Ready to Pass?' campaign which provides guidance for learners and helps debunk myths to reduce the number who need to take more than one driving test.
DVSA’s Chief Executive, Loveday Ryder commented: "I'd urge learners to use our 'Ready to Pass?' website to make sure they’re ready – and delay their test if they’re not.
"This will help make more tests available and prevent people having to pay to re-test."
Recently, the driving theory test centres with the highest pass rates were revealed, with Scottish centres taking the first, second and third spot.
Learner drivers in Tarbert, Pitlochry and Huntly appear to have done their homework as they boast the best pass rates in the UK, with 91.7 percent, 84.6 percent and 84.2 percent respectively.
Speaking on the 'Ready to Pass?' campaign, Roads Minister, Richard Holden said: "Passing your driving test is a major milestone but thousands of pounds and tests are unfortunately lost due to people not being properly prepared before they try."
"We need to make every test count and I would urge learners to use the ‘Ready to Pass’ campaign and change their test if they aren’t ready."
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Helping English learners achieve proficiency in the English language while also learning the same rigorous academic content as their native English-speaking peers is the job of every district and school that serves this growing population of students. But many schools struggle to do this, for myriad reasons that include educators’ mindsets and a lack of resources.
In this webinar, guests will talk about the educational, economic, and equity imperative for ensuring English learners get the supports they need to succeed in school and beyond.
Together, you will discuss:
For all webinars broadcast by Education Week after August 1, 2019, Certificates of Completion are available to all registered live attendees who attend 53 minutes or more of this webinar. Educators can obtain a PDF certificate verifying 1 hour of Professional Development credit. As with all professional development hours delivered, Education Week recommends each educator verify ahead of the webinar broadcast that the content will qualify for professional development in your school, district, county, or state with your supervisor, human resources professional, and/or principal or superintendent’s office.
Like most parents, the first thing I did whenever the kids came home at the end of the school term was to rush for the report cards. Over time I noticed that, almost instinctively, my eyes often glazed over the positive bits in search of the areas of weak performance.
The report might have three As but my eyes would be drawn to the C or D and the attendant note from the teacher calling for socks to be pulled up, parents to be called, or more concentration to be paid.
Parents are hard-wired to want their offspring to be better. And finding fault is the primordial state, upon which words of encouragement or punishment for failure are premised. It is how we were raised, and it is how we are conditioned to raise our kids.
Then I had what would eventually come to feel like an epiphany. First, I stopped looking at the report card as soon as it came in. I’d supply it a few days or weeks, then come to it with expectations in check and words of rebuke repressed.
I found that managing my own expectations allowed me to measure the kids’ academic performance by how much effort they put in, and how much enthusiasm they showed, not just the outcome of one bad exam or a difficult term. It did not mean that they were okay to slack off and turn in Fs. We agreed that as long as they did their best and left it all out on the field, we would accept whatever grade they got or find ways to Excellerate it, without blame – and without wrapping my belt around them.
Dear Reader, I don’t know if this is the right thing for every parent to do. We all learn on the job. And there must be some merit in pushing kids to get straight As or top the class. To each their own. But I am old enough to know that academic performance alone is not the ticket to a successful life, whichever parameters one uses to define “success”. Old enough to know that buying good grades by taking kids to schools with institutionalised cheating is parental idiocy.
Ergo, the recommendation from the National Planning Authority for primary leaving examinations to be scrapped made interesting reading. The planners say asking kids to memorise stuff over seven years then regurgitate it over two tension-filled days unfairly keeps many kids from advancing to secondary school. I agree, but only to a point. There must be a way to measure basic literacy and numeracy skills along the way to avoid the make-or-break bottleneck of exams. But this is only part of the problem. Some pupils drop out of the education system because they do not have the grades to get into secondary school. But many others drop out before they get to the exams, or walk away even if they qualify to go farther.
This is mostly a matter of affordability. They can’t pay the direct fees and other dues that private schools demand. Others look at what passes for government-aided schools and their excuse of an education and decide that the opportunity cost of not getting an early start in farming, business, or marriage is just too high. The core problem is value, not price. The quality of public education has deteriorated to the point where the marginal return on investment in school fees is low or negative, especially where the prize at the end of two decades is a long, soul-crushing search for a non-existent job. Why pay millions for a degree only to end up riding a boda boda when you could have started riding after primary seven? What has your A in Divinity or General Paper done for you lately?
The solution lies in more than scrapping the exams. It lies in rebuilding the curriculum for a world in which knowing the right questions to ask is more important than remembering the right answers. It lies in investing in teaching quality and learning outcomes aligned to the logic of seeing human capital development as a key ingredient and enabler of social-economic transformation.
Good grades are great, and I love to see them, but what our kids need is grit, critical thinking, confidence, respect, networking skills, empathy and emotional intelligence. They don’t teach any of this in school. Our education system is what needs to be examined, not the learners.
Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and poor man’s freedom fighter.
A accurate study from the Institute of English Language and Literature at Freie Universität Berlin has shown that using codified gestures as a teaching method may make it easier for children and adolescents to understand the grammar rules of a foreign language. Researcher Natasha Janzen Ulbricht has been investigating how different hand gestures can contribute to procedural learning during language lessons.
Her study focused on grammatical morphemes, the smallest unit of language that carries meaning, such as the plural {-s} and possessive {-s}. This innovative teaching method was tested in a primary school classroom. Tests carried out after the lessons showed that learners found it easier to internalize grammar rules and were able to apply these rules more readily when gestures which distinguish between grammatical morphemes were used as a learning aid.
The results of the study suggest that this teaching method should be further developed and refined. It also recommends that this approach be included in training programs for language teachers. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE in February 2023.
Approximately one third of children and adolescents in Germany attend a school where the main language spoken is not their first (or only first) language. This makes it all the more necessary that additional support is provided to help students learn the language and understand its grammar. Gestures could be a useful tool in this respect.
"We have neurocognitive data that support the idea of gestures being closely related to spoken language and evidence that gestures support memory when learning a language," explains Janzen Ulbricht. "Just as written notes can act as memory aids, gestures can provide a stable physical reference for language learners—even though speech is inherently ephemeral."
Words and sentences rely on units of meaning and grammatical elements, known as "morphemes." Janzen Ulbricht says that one of the challenges in acquiring languages in school lies in correctly arranging these units and being able to "predict" the next element in a given context. Codified gestures could help young learners of English who struggle with grammatical morphemes, such as the plural {-s} and possessive {-s} understand what they hear and Excellerate the predictions they make.
"Gestures offer a means of visually differentiating between grammatical morphemes that differ in meaning but sound the same," says Janzen Ulbricht. Since instructional gestures can be used independently of any given first language, teaching gestures may be particularly useful when teaching multilingual students.
Natasha Janzen Ulbricht is a researcher in English didactics and applied linguistics at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research explores how communicative movements can be used as a teaching tool in the classroom. She is also a specialist in training English language instructors and has hands-on experience in educating teachers in Germany, Zambia, and the US.
More information: Natasha Janzen Ulbricht et al, Can grammatical morphemes be taught? Evidence of gestures influencing second language procedural learning in middle childhood, PLOS ONE (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280543
Provided by Freie Universität Berlin
Citation: Can codified gestures help language learners master grammar rules? (2023, February 10) retrieved 19 February 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-02-codified-gestures-language-learners-master.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
The 26-storey, 404-unit residential development will incorporate technology to create a smart building with smart homes
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Designed for the “future of living,” Lucent, Landa Global Properties’ new 26-storey, 404-unit residential development in the Surrey City Centre neighbourhood will incorporate technology to create a smart building with smart homes, adding value to the daily lives of residents and the community as the area continues to grow and evolve.
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“We believe buyers will appreciate the smart building and home integration, which is the first of its kind for a residential building in Surrey,” says Kevin Cheung, CEO Landa Global Properties. “Technology has been changing our living spaces for some time, but this project incorporates so many different innovative offerings that will provide a revolutionary user experience. We believe this is the future of living,” he says.
Examples of smart technology in Lucent will include the 1VALET Smart Building System that offers secure keyless building access to residents and guests, amenity space bookings, concierge access and parcel delivery notification. Visitors will be able to access the lobby or parkade with a one-time code sent directly from the homeowners’ phone, while the interiors will be enhanced with the Brilliant Smart Home System that controls a range of devices, including thermostats, lighting and music.
Located on .72 acres at 13532 106A Avenue in Surrey, Lucent’s brick podium will include two-storey townhouses with landscaped patios and single-storey units above, says WA Architects’ Joel Smith.
“This arrangement presents a modern, pedestrian friendly interface between the building and the streets and breaks down the large massing of the overall building creating a more friendly pedestrian realm,” says Smith, noting the towers massing terraces down to the south and to the west will reduce the overall impression of scale of the building.
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Conveniently located near the Surrey Central and Gateway SkyTrain stations, Cheung anticipates many buyers of the studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom condos and townhomes will be first-time homeowners, local up-sizers and investors.
Lucent will feature more than 23,800 square feet of integrated indoor and outdoor amenity spaces, including large, landscaped terraces on the third, fourth and 17th-floor roofs where the building steps back.
Many of the amenities focus on fitness and wellness. On the third floor, these include a fitness centre, sauna, spin studio with Peloton bikes and a yoga studio, while there is also space outside to exercise with an outdoor lounge providing space to cool down after a workout.
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In the entertainment zone, there is a video game station and sports party lounge along with an additional lounge with a kitchen, dining area plus a pool table, foosball table and music practice room.
Residents who can work from home will appreciate the co-working space that includes a lounge, meeting centre and private rooms.
On level four, there is an outdoor lounge, a kids’ play area and a designated space for owners to walk their dogs.
On the 17th level, an executive dining lounge and Sky Lounge with barbecue are some of the standout indoor amenities, while a picnic lawn and a Sky Garden Walk will enhance the open-air facilities.
The attention to detail in the amenities continues inside the homes where three terms – intuitive, noteworthy and refined luxury – underpinned the ethos of “first impressions matter,” the guiding philosophy for the interior design schemes, says BYU Design’s Courtney Kenakin.
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Buyers can choose from two colour palettes: Light and Dark. While both schemes are anchored by the same warm-toned laminate floor, the differences are seen mainly in the two-tone kitchen cabinetry and the choice of tiles in the bathrooms.
In the kitchens of the Light scheme, white cabinets with the refrigerator integrated behind warm walnut laminate cabinets are complemented by white quartz countertops and a marble-look quartz slab backsplash with light grey veining.
In the Dark scheme, grey cabinets contrast with the cool wood tones of the laminate cabinetry that integrate the refrigerator, while darker veining in the marble-look quartz backsplash defines the colour palette.
The standout feature in most of the floorplans is the dining table attached to the kitchen island.
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“It’s a great way to integrate the dining table with the island. If you’re having a dinner party, everyone is in kitchen anyway, so it’s nice to have a central area,” says Kenakin, pointing out the table, which is supported by a single solid leg and appears to be floating.
The major kitchen appliances are by Fulgor Milano, including wall oven, gas cooktop and dishwasher. In homes under 800 square feet, the refrigerator is also by Fulgor Milano, while in the larger units, the refrigerator is by Fisher & Paykel.
In the bathrooms, chrome faucets and fixtures are consistent across both palettes. Striking 12- by 24-inch dark marble-look porcelain tiles are an attention-grabbing feature in the Dark scheme, while the same size wall tiles – white with subtle grey veining – distinguish the Light scheme.
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Frameless glass shower enclosures and floating vanities with integrated lighting in the mirrored medicine cabinets add to the bathrooms’ spa-like ambience.
As Cheung reflects on the building and its name, he explains Lucent, meaning “glowing with light,” suggests the word “beaming.”
“We think that Surrey is beaming with knowledge and potential, as seen by the many universities that have set up campuses in the area. This all ties into our theme of smart living for Lucent. The spotlight is on Surrey. It’s the fastest-growing city in British Columbia, and its population is set to eclipse Vancouver by 2041. We want to encapsulate all this energy into Lucent,” he says.
Project: Lucent
Project address: 13532-106A Avenue, Surrey
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Developer: Landa Global Properties
Architect: WA Architects
Interior designer: BYU Design
Project size: 404 units; 26-storeys
Number of bedrooms: Studio,1-, 2- and 3-bedroom condos and townhomes
Price: Starting from $441,900
Sales centre: 10239 King George Blvd, Surrey, B.C., V3T 2W6
Sales centre phone: 604-239-1999
Centre hours: By appointment
Website: lucentliving.ca
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