Teacher in Residence

Published 27th June 2018

The D&T Association are partnering with The Sorrell Foundation and The Design Business Association in a new initiative for teachers to provide them with an in-depth understanding of working within the creative industries with a top design agency.

The D&T Association will work to identify members who are willing to sacrifice five days of their summer holiday to participate in an internship with a top UK design company. The companies involved have agreed to fully induct the teacher, treat them like a full-time member of staff and fully involve them in live projects. The programme's objective is for teachers to gain first-hand experience of working with a major design agency, providing experience and long-term contacts which will benefit the teacher and their students. From opinion pieces collected to date, we anticipate a strong appetite for this from teachers across the country.

We have already identified a number of agencies across the country keen to take part in this scheme and are now in the process of securing D&TA members in schools, initially local to the organisations, in order for us to pilot this scheme effectively in its first year with a view to growing the scheme in subsequent years.

The pilot will be provided free of charge to selected members (other than travel to/from the place of work), meals will be provided by the agencies who have offered their services. Teachers will be asked to provide a short written blog detailing their experience and the agencies have also agreed to provide feedback from their perspective. We plan to publish a full account of all placements together with teacher and agency feedback on the D&TA website in September/October this year.

This is part of a drive by The Association to provide an increased range of services for its members.