On Tuesday 19 March we hosted our 2023 – 24 V&A Innovate National Schools Challenge Pitching and Awards Day. What an incredible day it was! The top 10 teams travelled from across the country to the V&A South Kensington, where they took part in creative workshops with artists and designers, saw their work on display, and stood up in front of a full auditorium to showcase their brilliant design ideas to a panel of industry judges. We had four inspiring industry judges on the panel for this year’s Challenge headed up by Dr Helen Charman, Director of Young V&A, Learning and National Programmes:
- Jay Blades: Maker, presenter BBC’s The Repair Shop
- Victoria Jenkins: Fashion designer, founder Unhidden Clothing
- Camille Walala: Artist, murals, public space interventions
- Gayle Chong Kwan: Multi-disciplinary artist
The students’ design projects responded to three themes inspired by our Design: 1900 – Now galleries: Restore, Play and Sense. Each group came up with highly empathic and carefully considered design solutions to tackle a real-world problem, grounded in user research and insights. We were blown away by the quality of their work and their pitches!
Close to 2,500 students took part and 226 teams entered ideas. From all entries received, Central Foundation Girls School, London has become our fifth overall winner for their proposal to design an inclusive, sustainable playground for their local community.
“When we found out we were winners I was shocked, I couldn’t speak for a good two minutes. And I realized that oh my gosh, we’ve won! Because I thought we were going to go home with nothing, genuinely like we didn’t win anything. And then we heard Central Foundation and I screamed inside, I was just overjoyed”
– Student, V&A Innovate Pitching and Awards Day, 2023/24
‘They were so nervous about pitching to the judges. But the judges really put them at ease, and they could tell they were really listening and thinking about their ideas. We’re so excited to have met them, it’s brilliant for the students to have inspiring professionals in the creative industry to look up to.’
Teacher, V&A Innovate Pitching and Awards Day, 2023/24
The winning entry for the Restore category was Severn Vale School, Gloucestershire for their Pill Box design idea – a box designed to help people living with dementia to take their medicine.
The winning entry for the Play category was Kelvin Hall School, East Yorkshire for their accessible playground – digital tech tools to make playtime and sports more accessible for all students.
The winning entry for the Sense category was Rosebery School, for their Neck Pillow design – a soothing sensory neck device for children on the autistic spectrum.
The best pitch award went to Chelmsford County High School for Girls, East of England, for their enthusiastic pitch of their design Green Gift – an environmentally-friendly and re-usable gift wrapping.
The Student Choice award went to Camden School for Girls, London, for their Spelling Bee design idea – an in-ear device that supports people with literacy challenges.
Honourable mentions go to:
Outwood Academy, Haydock, North West – for Restore Décor (Restore). The judges cited the inventiveness of the team’s idea and their clever approach to bringing greenspaces to people’s homes.
Kingsdale Foundation School, London – Best Research and Development for the App (Restore category). The judges were impressed by the work that the team had put into their research and development of their idea, basing their process on data and feedback from users.
The Ecclesbourne School, East Midlands – for their biggest design journey for their design Learning Lamp (Sense category). The judges were impressed with how far the group had developed their idea between submission and the Pitching and Awards Day.
Stockport Academy, North West – for the best realised product for Bottle top Tiddly Winks (Play category). The judges liked the way the team had made a complete product which they could play on the Pitching and Awards Day!
Well done to all 10 Finalist teams who pitched their ideas this year. They all did a fantastic job!
TEACHER OF THE YEAR
The annual V&A Innovate Teacher Award is a chance for us to celebrate teachers who have demonstrated outstanding commitment to supporting and inspiring their students in design and creative education through the National Schools Challenge. Our winner this year is:
Russell Hill, Houlton School, West Midlands. A huge congratulations to Russell for showing such dedication to his students and school.
Congratulations to all students and teachers who took part this year!
WHAT’S NEXT FOR V&A INNOVATE?
We will be announcing the themes for next year’s National Schools Challenge in May. Sign up to our newsletter, find out more about how to take part and explore our resources on our Innovate page at vam.ac.uk/innovate
#InnovateVAM
“I think if students were doing it next year, I think would be a great opportunity to get involved and get stuck in it. You do your best, you might go to London. There’s that opportunity to go to London and literally do it in front of everyone.”
– Student, V&A Innovate Pitching and Awards Day 2023-24
V&A Innovate is generously supported by Daniel Howard Foundation and The John S Cohen Foundation.
