A partnership between the British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, and award-winning animation studio Aardman has won gold in the prestigious Society of British and International Design (SBID) awards in the Intelligent Design category. ‘Learning Time with Shaun & Timmy’ pop-up learning centres, designed for children aged two to six years around the world to learn English with the help of Shaun the Sheep and Timmy, triumphed over other nominees in the category including Edinburgh City Council and a number of renowned design studios.
The British Council has been teaching English for over 75 years, and is trusted by parents all over the world. In 2015 they teamed-up with Oscar®-award winning Aardman to bring English teaching to life for 2-6 year olds through the much loved characters and stories from Shaun the Sheep and Timmy Time. The partnership started with the launch of face-to-face courses taught at Learning Time with Shaun & Timmy centres, designed with 2-6 year old children in mind; each centre has four bright and vibrant classrooms, bespoke furniture and unique features to transport children into the world of Shaun the Sheep, Timmy and friends. Full centres are up and running in Singapore, Chile and México. Bahrain has joined the list of countries running the award winning programme and is currently registering students.
This first phase of the programme was successful; however one of the main challenges was the time and investment required to establish each new centre. The British Council decided to adapt the design of the bespoke Learning Time with Shaun and Timmy learning centres and to produce a ‘pop-up’ version that can be easily installed in kindergartens, schools, teaching establishments and even shopping centres and libraries. The vision was to offer the same inspiring courses and immersive experience as the full centres, but in a flexible format which could be easily transported and used in multi-purpose spaces.
This new flexible approach to offering English courses enables the British Council to give thousands more children around the world a positive first experience of English, in locations which are convenient for their families. Pop-up learning centres have been launched so far in schools and British Council teaching centres in Mexico, Egypt and Spain. On December 13th, 2016, the British Council Teaching Centre in Bahrain will be the first in the GCC to launch the programme for children ages 4-5 years old.
The British Council and Aardman partnership is born out of a shared vision to bring together the best of UK creativity and English language expertise to engage and educate young minds around the world. The teaching methodology at the heart of Learning Time with Shaun & Timmy is inspired by the UK’s world-leading Early Years Foundation Stage and is taught by the British Council’s teaching experts.
The British Council and Aardman are building on their innovative approach and developing more new products in 2017 to enable greater numbers of young children around the world to learn English in a fun and inspiring way.
Anna Searle, Director of English at the British Council said:
“We are delighted to have received the Intelligent Design Award for our Learning Time with Shaun & Timmy pop-up English learning centres, which are designed to appeal to very young learners. These flexible installations enable us to reach learners through English language teaching in many more locations around the world, offering thousands of children a unique and memorable learning experience based on the fun and creativity of Aardman’s characters and the British Council’s English language teaching expertise.”
Sean Clarke, Head of Rights and Brand Development at Aardman said:
“Aardman and the British Council have always set out to enter the market with a unique educational brand that delivers to both companies’ strengths, being both highly entertaining and providing a learning environment of the highest standard. To receive this prestigious award is great independent recognition of our achievement’s so far. We look forward to building on this and announcing new plans for the partnership in the new year.”