The Sorrell Foundation Young Design Programme has developed out of joinedupdesignforschools, and shares its focus of improving the quality of life in schools through good design. The programme, run in partnership with University of the Arts London, joins up young people in primary schools, secondary schools and further education colleges with students at universities and colleges, and designers in industry. The young people act as clients commissioning a design project; they set a brief for their student design consultants, who are in turn mentored by professional designers and architects.
The Young Design Programme prepares pupils, further education students and schools for forthcoming capital investments by beginning an intensive discussion about design in advance of school development programmes. An extended programme called Joinedupdesign for Academies results in a Pupils’ Brief, which describes the pupils’ ideas and is supported by the design students’ creative responses. The brief is used to inform decisions about the design of the academy.
The development of life skills is at the heart of the programme. The creative process contains opportunities for all participants to learn and develop transferable skills such as teamworking, problem-solving and communication, which help them succeed, not just in creative thinking, but in life in general.
The four-year prototype began in 2005, scaling up in each subsequent year. To date, 74 schools, six further education colleges, and 11 universities or higher education colleges have taken part. So far 1,029 client team members have worked with 451 students of design and 91 professional mentors in 83 design projects, with a further 15 film or photographic projects.
The Sorrell Foundation aims to further develop the Young Design Programme and Joinedupdesign for Academies as models that can be offered to all universities and colleges of design in the country.
-The Sorrell Foundation
I have exchanged emails with organises from 'The young designers program'. A guy called Ian replyed to me saying that he would see if there was any work for me. After a reminding Ian about my previous emails, he finally got back to me saying that there was no work avalable at the moment, which was quite annoying as I had waited quite along time, when I could have been chasing other leads and opportunities. Bit disappointed to be honest but im sure there's something else out there for me.