The Arc is Arc Innovate's complete learning journey — three levels, one continuous thread of design thinking, growing in depth as your child grows.
Design thinking doesn't change as children get older — but what they apply it to does. The Arc moves students from hands-on exploration, to solving their own problems, to designing for other people entirely.
At this age, thinking happens through doing. Children build the basic language of design — shape, colour, texture, cause and effect — through open-ended, hands-on experimentation. There's no "wrong" answer yet, only curiosity: what happens if I mix these? What if I build it this way instead?
This is where the design thinking habit is planted, long before children have the words for it. "How might we fix this?" becomes a natural question, not a taught phrase.
Now design thinking becomes a real process. Children learn to solve problems that matter to them — a personal frustration, a classroom challenge, an idea they've always wanted to build. This is where critical thinking sharpens: weighing options, testing ideas, and learning when to think fast and when to slow down and go deeper.
Flexibility of thinking is the core skill here — the ability to hold multiple ideas at once, and not settle for the first solution that comes to mind. This is the heart of the Arc, where 3D printing, building, and digital design bring ideas into the real world for the first time.
The final shift is the most important one: from solving problems for yourself to solving problems for other people. This is social innovation — genuine research into real communities, real users, and real needs beyond the student's own experience.
Projects go deeper and take longer. Students conduct real interviews, test with real users, and iterate based on evidence rather than assumption. Every project at this level contributes to a growing portfolio — a real body of work students can show schools, mentors, or future employers, demonstrating not just what they made, but how they think.
Every child enters at the level that matches their age — and grows through a genuine progression, not a fixed course. Get in touch and we'll help you find the right starting point.
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