17 October 2024

Heatherwick Studio launches major new creative education programme for young people

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Heatherwick Studio has launched a three-year creative education programme that will work with 600 young people aged 10-14. Named In The Making, the initiative will be one of the biggest programmes run by any design studio in Britain. It aims to inspire young people to see themselves as creative and support all 6,000 architecture practices across the UK to engage with schools.  

In The Making launches as the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, kicks off a hugely significant Curriculum and Assessment review. This looks set to change school accountability measures, including Progress 8, and give more weight to creative education in the way that schools are assessed.

In support of these efforts, Heatherwick studio has developed a unique programme of light touch, high volume creative learning for 10–14-year-olds. This has been co-designed with young people and then tested through a year-long pilot involving 230 teenagers, 21 architects and designers, and 14 workshops with two pioneering youth organisations, Global Generation and IntoUniversity.

“This is a pivotal moment for arts education and Britain’s creative industries,” said Thomas Heatherwick, founder and design director at Heatherwick studio. “Everyone working in design is passionate about supporting young people. But most programmes offered by the sector are too rare, too small, and too late. We need to intervene earlier, before students choose their GCSEs, and help young people see themselves as creative.”

Arts education today is deep in crisis. Despite a growing body of evidence which shows that creative education positively impacts on young people’s attendance, performance and mental health, delivery in schools has collapsed on the back of government funding cuts and introduction of the EBacc which deprioritised creative subjects.

The number of hours spent teaching creative subjects in English state-funded secondary schools fell by 23% from 2011-2024 and the number of teachers teaching those subjects by 27%. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a 37% decline in GCSE entries for these subjects.

In 2022, The Guardian reported that on average specific government funding for music, arts and cultural programmes equated to just £9.40 per pupil this year.

To help turn the tide, Heatherwick studio is publishing three open-source assets, freely available to any architecture practice. These are:

– The template for a 2-hour workshop that can be adapted and used in any setting to run a creative education session with young people.

– An accompanying Practice Guide with tips and ideas for designers who haven’t previously worked with schools and young people.

– A short Evidence Review summarising all the available research on the current state of creative education and its potential impact on young people.

“The great thing about architecture in the UK is that it has much greater geographic reach than most other creative professions”, said Matt Bell, Heatherwick’s Strategic Communications Director. “The Government rightly wants to expand the choices available to every child wherever they live and whatever their background. Architects are brilliantly placed to support this. If every architecture practice in this country ran one workshop each term with a class from their local school, that would reach 180,000 young people.”