First-of-a-kind Learning Lab re-imagines learning curriculum in the UAE

Citizens School is a new school in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) designed and developed by Al Zarooni Emirates Investments. True to its philosophy, Citizens School is driven to innovate its pedagogy to be attuned to the needs of modern learners. To this end, it needed a partner that would co-design the school of the future — a learning environment that bridges the gap between education and industry.

Citizens School’s custom-built curriculum is influenced by some of the world’s leading cognitive scientists and researchers. Its 43,000-square-metre campus has a capacity for 2,600 children between the ages of three and thirteen and features almost 3,000 square meters of open space for play. It also boasts state-of-the-art facilities including a multi-purpose performing arts and activity hall, a six-lane swimming pool, and football and rugby pitches adhering to FIFA and World Rugby standards.

The school aims to revolutionise education by challenging traditional practices and introducing an innovative approach to learning. Its goal is to provide staff, parents and learners with an enhanced educational experience that embraces purpose-driven innovation. The curriculum goes beyond conventional subjects, incorporating essential future-ready skills such as digital literacy, entrepreneurship, global citizenship, health and wellbeing, growth mindset, and sustainability. GHD aims to collaborate closely with the Citizens team to transform this vision into a concrete action plan and curriculum.

Through GHD Digital’s innovation consulting practice, D-Lab, our team of specialists partnered with Citizens School to create a first-of-a-kind Learning Lab as part of a new Collaboration Hub to redesign the school’s learning curriculum. This pioneering project adopts approaches, methodologies and entrepreneurial techniques typically applied in the corporate world by leading companies, integrating them into an educational setting. These methodologies incorporate human-centered design to foster a culture of co-creation and design thinking among Citizens mentors. By doing so, we aim to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset that facilitates innovation and constant improvement of Citizens educational offerings in response to the needs of learners.

This partnership also marks a new chapter in the education sector, as the combined expertise of GHD Digital and Citizens School becomes the foundation of the Learning Lab — a nurturing space where ideation, creativity, and problem-solving can thrive. It brings together not only the staff but also involves parents and subject experts to enhance the overall learning experience for students.

Since our initial scope, we have taken on several additional work streams with Citizens. These include supporting the onboarding process for new team members, creating a Design Thinking Toolkit for mentors, and providing continuous coaching in design thinking for school leaders within the school. Currently, we are in the fourth phase of the project, where we are expanding on the Citizens Future Framework curriculum that we developed in the first phase. This iteration aims to make the curriculum even more effective and impactful for learners.

Citizens School is the first school in the world to set up a Learning Lab that embeds co-creation, design thinking methodologies, and human-centred design practices in its revamped learning curriculum. It provides a collaborative environment where innovation is not only a vision but a lived reality for learners and educators.

To date, the project milestones include 27 Learning Lab sessions facilitated, with 56 Learning Lab participants and 30 Design Thinking Bootcamp participants, and with more than 100 pieces of inspirational academic research sourced and shared. The developed curriculum employs an integrated project-based learning approach, emphasising the essential future skills identified. It incorporates and adapts the design thinking process for students to follow in every project, enabling them to tackle future-focused challenges while honing important future skills.

Our innovation consulting practice has always focused on purpose-led innovation and transformation. This pilot project with Citizens School creates an opportunity to bring modern perspectives to the learning curricula of schools in the UAE, altogether shaping the next generation of innovators and leaders.