Katherine Mengardon

Founder @Playspace

London, GB

Welcome to the serious business of play!PlaySpace is a both a consultancy and a vision. We help develop strategies, programmes while also running our own digital and offline projects. And long term? A creativity platform for children, schools and parents. Our aim is to nurture children’s natural abilities and give them the space to develop the skills they need now and in the future: creativity, collaboration, confidence, problem-solving, resilience, innovation, openness. We create content that sparks curiosity and hooks young people in with themes and content to inspire them throughout their school and home life into adulthood. We believe that by placing children and young people at the heart of their own learning experiences, they feel validated and empowered and can take a more active role and are more likely to be engaged, care about and take ownership of their education. Creativity is not only relevant to the arts, it’s present in all aspects of society. As we move towards an age of advanced technology and AI, creative thinking is becoming an essential and sought-after skill. Most education systems are based on an outdated one size fits no one model, focusing on ‘getting things right’. Learning is often divorced from experience or perceived as a chore. Meanwhile the proven value of play, freedom and creativity is under-exploited. We want to give children and young people the space and agency to explore topics freely, develop their own thinking, ideas and feel empowered. Inclusion, accessibility and diversity are at the heart of our offer, but we also take a particular interest in neurodiversity. We all look different so why do we expect our brains to be the same? We all are part of a neurospectrum, a richness to be valued and nurtured, that is often at the heart of much creativity. We believe that by putting the needs of neurodiverse children first, we will create experiences that will benefit them but also their peers.

Universite Toulouse le Mirail

Degree, English Literature and Philosophy

Pierre de Fermat

Baccalaureat, Languages, literature and philosophy