Springdale Primary School, Singapore

Being a newly set-up, 3 year-old school, the school has about 700 Grade 1 to 3 students. Starting from 2015, we offer the Grade 3 students modular co-curricular programmes which provide a breath of learning experiences ranging from the arts to sports to clubs. The Innovators Club is one of these modular co-curricular programmes. It aims to imbue in students the flexible and generative mindsets and skills for creative problem-solving through Design Thinking. Design Thinking is about having the creative confidence that everyone can be part of creating a more desirable future and the process to take action when faced with a difficult challenge. In the course of the 4-week sessions, students are exposed to the different phases of Design Thinking. They work in collaborative groups, and on problems and issues that they might face in school. This is achieved by having the students conduct ethnographic observations in various parts of the school at the onset, e.g. the indoor basketball court which is usually the assembly area, the school canteen, the library, etc. The students then choose a problem or issue present in the context which they have observed. Using the Design Thinking process, they go through the problem-solving process. Their work is documented along the way and their findings and proposed solution presented to the class at the end of the programme. Moving forward, the Design Thinking module would be revisited for the Grade 4 to 6 students in the Innovators Club. More advance tools and strategies for the respective phases would be taught, so as to deepen the students' appreciation and application of the framework. The learning would be situated in real-world contexts and students would learn these problem-solving skills through an experiential approach.