EDGE Museum Exploration
As part of their EDGE interdisciplinary curriculum Second Year pupils students visited the Young V&A Museum in London to deepen their understanding of sustainable town planning and design thinking. Armed with activity booklets, pupils explored the museum’s three core galleries — Imagine, Play, and Design — each offering a unique lens on creativity, community, and innovation.
In the Imagine Gallery, students were encouraged to think like visionary architects, storytellers, and change-makers. They studied intricately designed dolls’ houses and imagined what homes and communities of the future might look like. Some invented their own sustainability superheroes, while others sketched planet-themed neighbourhoods or imagined community buildings that could help protect the environment. These exercises not only tapped into their creativity but also prompted thoughtful reflection on what makes a community thrive.
The Play Gallery brought design principles to life through hands-on, collaborative challenges. From constructing sustainable cities out of blocks to designing multi-sensory parks and indoor play spaces, pupils considered how the built environment can influence wellbeing, learning, and sustainability. They also explored the educational roots of play by learning about Fredrich Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten, and designing toys and games that could teach younger children about environmental responsibility.
In the Design Gallery, students investigated real-world inventions by young people from around the world, including a wildlife-warning system created by a teenager in India. Inspired by these stories, pupils tackled real challenges faced in their own towns — from litter and flooding to a lack of green space — and designed innovative solutions ranging from solar-powered bus stops to eco-conscious public spaces. They examined sustainable materials such as mycelium and biodegradable plastics, linking their discoveries to their own town planning ideas.
Throughout the visit, pupils worked independently or in small teams, completing workbook tasks that required sketching, reflecting, and problem-solving — all while connecting back to the big themes of sustainability, civic responsibility, and creative design.
The Young V&A offered an exciting, interactive backdrop for this ambitious and forward-thinking project. The final two Second Year classes, 2A and 2D will be heading out on the same adventure after the Easter break. We are excited to see how their experiences will shape the future towns they continue to design in class — and perhaps, one day, the world beyond school walls.
