STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is high on the agenda for schools, inspiring teachers to find more creative ways of bringing these skills to life in the classroom. Is Arckit the solution we’ve been looking for?

As part of their Art curriculum, Furzedown Primary School in south west London has been running workshops on architectural design. This is to help the children’s knowledge and understanding of materials, structure, colour and aesthetics, and how they can be applied physically into built assemblies. Architectural design is not a subject normally taught in schools before college, but it is a subject that is very relevant to everyone. We all live in the built environment which is heavily managed with lots of design interventions. Individually and collectively these affect us directly, so why not bring architectural design into the classroom?

Reports of budget cuts for school building programmes have left most teachers struggling away in the same old classroom environments. Many existing classrooms do not offer the best conditions for teaching in or learning. Our stock of existing classrooms might be tired and requiring attention, but they do not need to be second-rate environments.