St Paul’s School’s Design Led Ventures named as a finalist at the National Education Awards

St Paul’s School’s unique creation, Design Led Ventures (DLVs), has been named as a finalist in the Innovation in Learning Environment Design category in the Australian Education Awards.

What is a Design Led Venture?

A DLV is a 14 week program for students in Years 7-12 where they work with a business or organisation to design an innovative business solution. This includes workshops, challenges, interviewing stakeholders, excursions, guest speakers, design thinking, honing their creative dispositions and developing their entrepreneurial skills. The students learned how to work well as a team, how to create and use measurable goals, conduct effective interviews, project planning, collaboration, and implementation planning.

What was achieved in 2022?

Our DLV program last year welcomed renowned real estate services firm JLL Australia into our 14-week program. JLL presented students with a challenge: how could the bright young minds of St Paul’s School further assist JLL in becoming an influencer of sustainable practices throughout the community? For the next three months, the students worked towards a solution through interviews, project planning, collaboration and implementation planning. The result? The JLL Green Space.

What was the solution?

The JLL Green Space will be an interactive, flexible and scalable space that showcases JLL’s world-leading net zero transition program. The showcase space will allow JLL to leverage and share its carbon reduction and sustainability expertise with communities beyond its clients and employees. By doing so, JLL will not only achieve its own science-based net-zero target but also influence and lead other communities to strive for the same. The St Paul’s team explained their idea to JLL representatives, parents, students and teachers at the DLV Pitch and Celebration Night at the School’s Bald Hills campus. JLL were impressed by the outcome and told the students that they had come up with “a solution that we hadn’t thought about before”.

Why are DLVs important for education?

DLV creator and Realms of Thinking Coach Tim Osborne said the 2022 program had again showcased the benefits of St Paul’s innovative approach to learning. The DLV is built on our Realms of Thinking dispositions which have become so integral to our students’ daily learning. This program enables our students to integrate with leading businesses and provide corporate leaders with the energy of youth and the insights of a St Paul’s School education,” he said.

“The students have provided powerful feedback on DLV. They have told us that DLV has boosted their confidence, given them experience in businesses of the real world, and shown how their years of learning at St Paul’s sets them up for a bright future. We are honoured that the judges in the Australian Education Awards have made our DLV a finalist in a prestigious award. We are thrilled for our students and for the School, which encourages and promotes the value of creativity and innovation,” said Mr Osborne.

You can view more details about the Australian Education Awards here.

“Not every child is an entrepreneur. But every child can learn how to think like one.”

Dr Paul Browning, St Paul’s School Headmaster

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