The event was held at a centre where leading educational research in the field of science and technology is done and was attended by educational researchers, education leaders and science and technology teachers from various countries. Dr Alison Hardy, senior lecturer in D&T education at Nottingham Trent University, delivered a presentation on D&T education in England including what innovative D&T departments in England, like Trinity, are doing in their schools. We are very privileged that Trinity School was one of only three schools to have been selected to showcase students’ work.

The D&T department at Trinity School has been working for several months with Dr Hardy who is leading on research around design fiction in the D&T curriculum. Dr Hardy’s work on design fiction has involved helping Trinity School to develop a new scheme of work based around this, where students explore future scenarios in which new and emerging technologies might be used.

The group of Year 7 students have been working on an exciting new design challenge in their D&T lessons based around Design Fiction. In this project, students have been exploring new and emerging technologies of the future; thinking about what impact technology has on society and then coming up with their ideas about how they think technology might be used in the future, including artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, drone technology, virtual and augmented reality and electric and autonomous vehicles.

Students considered different scenarios, settings and technologies and produced a range of their own innovative designs where they applied these new and emerging technologies to their ideas. They also produced a piece of ‘design fiction’ story writing where they imagined themselves in the future using some of these technologies and wrote about what an experience of a more developed future technological world might be like.

The students also produced a short video to explain more about what they have been doing in their Design Fiction project, which can be watched below.

A massive well done to all of the students who had their design work and story writing showcased and a huge thank you to Dr Hardy for her time working with Trinity School.