We were approached in summer 2022 by Pearson, who were considering a programme of activity to explore a potential new approach towards design education in the UK.

Pearson wanted to run some advisory panel sessions with 50 key stakeholders from education, industry and the world of design thinking to collect their ideas and refine potential frameworks.

Between September and December 2022, we conducted a large-scale set of 1:1 interviews, collaborative workshops and focused development activities to help draw together a proposal for the future of design education in UK schools.

The process involved teachers and school leaderships, industry leaders, higher education lecturers, and design thinking experts, along with key organisations working to promote and improve design, engineering, and food education in UK schools.

We ran the workshops on Zoom, and used the collaborative whiteboard software Miro to enable participants to collaborate visually during the sessions.

The work contributed to Pearson's plans to drive forward a new, future-focused design and technology (D&T) curriculum that inspires children and young people to become the creative problem solvers of the future.

Supporting both the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development goals and the Department for Education's vision for the UK to be “the world-leading education sector in sustainability and climate change by 2030.”, the proposed plans lay the foundations for a 5-19 curriculum that has at its heart themes such as sustainability, design thinking, systems thinking, collaboration creativity and innovation.

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