Launceston College and Kenneth Grange

Duration: 1.5 days
Teachers: Paul Saunders and John Fraser
Students: Year 9

Kenneth Grange is a renowned product designer and founding member of agency Pentagram. Launceston College is his nearest secondary school.

Activity

Session 1 Briefing prior to the week (two hours)

Kenneth kicked off the session by introducing himself and his work.

He then asked the class to spend time with an elderly relative or neighbour, observe them carrying out everyday tasks, and report back in two weeks, describing any difficulties they noticed. He emphasised that he did not want solutions - just the problems.

Session 2 (whole day)

Kenneth asked each student to talk about their observations.

He then discussed with the class which design challenges might realistically be tackled in a day. Four groups were formed to tackle four problems:

• Hanging out the washing
• Picking up dog mess
• Carving a joint of meat
• Picking items up from the floor.

 
The groups brainstormed possible solutions. When they were ready to develop some of their ideas, Kenneth encouraged them to make prototypes as they designed. Each group presented their final idea using a range of methods including video.

Feedback

Designer

Kenneth was full of praise for the results achieved by the students. 'The youngsters really came up trumps and were both creative and practical in their approach,' he said.

He was particularly impressed with the thinking shown by one group. He explains: 'I asked them to think laterally about the problem, and the group working on an alternative to clothes pegs did that particularly well. Rather than just trying to redesign the clothes peg granny found hard to use they thought it was best to tackle the whole problem of hanging out clothes. So they developed a new clothes line with loops incorporating grips that you can push clothes into, so that granny wouldn't have to use pegs at all.'

Kenneth said he would happily repeat his visit to Launceston College. 'I loved it. I noticed the teachers were just as interested as the kids,' he said.

Teacher

Paul Saunders said the time spent with Kenneth Grange was inspirational for both himself and the students. 'Getting involved in this initiative has allowed staff and students to really act as true designers,' he commented. He contrasted this experience with normal school D&T activities which he felt were constrained by the pressures of examination courses, the curriculum and timetabling. Paul is keen now to develop the more open-ended problem-led approach to designing which Kenneth used.

Students

Tristan described the experience of working with Kenneth as 'thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding - beats maths any day!' He also discovered that design is a challenging process with many stages. 'Once you get an initial idea it's hard to develop it into a fully working product,' he explained.

Abi responded well to Kenneth's open-ended approach, saying that she had learnt how important it is to 'always keep an open mind and find the problem first. Then you can start to solve it'.