Futures thinking in your classroom - Breakout session - Cambridge Schools Conference December 2025

Oct 23, 2026

Futures thinking in your classroom presents a breakout session for educators, students, and parents focused on preparing learners to thrive. It examines how current changes influence learning, teaching, and assessment, and evaluates both positive and negative impacts. The session guides participants to research future trends, explore disruptors, generate provocation questions, and use discussion to shape preferred futures from now through 2050.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Session outline

Researching the future

Disruptors

Provocations

Discussion

Preferred futures

How we use the research

Futures thinking in your classroom Paul Ellis , Head of Thought Leadership for Education Elizabeth Cater, Director, Global Marketing Ben Schmidt, Director, International Network Breakout session Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025 Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive |
Session outline
1. Researching the future
2. Disruptors
3. Provocations
4. Discussion
5. Preferred futures | | | --- | --- | | When you imagine the future of education…
| | | | --- | --- | --- | |

Do you feel positive? |

Do you feel negative?
Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025
Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive | 3 | The Futures of…projects Asking educators, students and parents: • What current changes are influencing learning, teaching and assessment? • What is the impact of these changes? • What positive and negative outcomes could arise in education? Cambridge Schools Conference, December Future preparing | How we use the research
| | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | Understand the high-level trends driving change in education | | Know what to do between now and 2050 to shape our preferred futures | | | Design curricula, assessments, learning resources and teacher guidance to support our schools | | Understand what we still need to research | | Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025
Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive | | | | Disruptors Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025 Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive | Futures thinking is about change
| | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | |
Irreversible or reversible |
Gradual or sudden |
Out of our control or
within our control |
Unexpected or expected | | Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025
Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive 7 | | | | |
| | | --- | --- | | Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025
Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive | | | Examples of disruptors
| | | --- | --- | | | What are the consequences of each disruptor?
Consider the question from the perspectives of:
a) learning, teaching and assessment
b) managing a school
Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025
Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive | | Examples of disruptors: climate change
| | | --- | --- | | What it means for schools:
Teachers may need to integrate sustainability themes into the curriculum and prepare for sudden shifts in teaching environments.
Extreme weather events and resource shortages could disrupt school operations and learning continuity.
Leaders must plan for resilient infrastructure and flexible approaches to learning, including remote or hybrid options. | | | Cambridge Schools Conference, December 2025
Future-ready: preparing learners to thrive | |

FAQs

What changes in education does the session focus on?

It asks what current changes are influencing learning, teaching, and assessment, and what impact those changes have on education.

How does the session define “futures thinking”?

It frames futures thinking as understanding change through different dimensions, such as irreversible vs reversible, gradual vs sudden, and expected vs unexpected outcomes.

How are disruptors and their consequences handled?

Participants examine examples of disruptors and consider consequences for learning, teaching, assessment, and school management.

Oct 23, 2026

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