Generative AI can produce a picture, suggest ten ideas and draft a convincing answer before a child has found a sharp pencil. That speed is impressive. It is also the educational problem.

If children use AI only to reach an answer faster, they may miss the part of learning where they form an idea, wrestle with it, test it and decide whether it is any good. If schools avoid AI altogether, children get little help understanding a technology they already encounter outside the classroom.

Future Designers starts in that uncomfortable middle.

The two-year Erasmus+ cooperation partnership brings together organisations and primary schools from the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. From December 2025 to December 2027, the partners will develop and test an approach to responsible co-design with generative AI for children aged 9 to 12.

The aim is specific: help teachers integrate GenAI into project-based and design learning while protecting human creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving. AI should support those capacities rather than quietly replace them.

Why primary education needs more than another AI tool

Primary teachers are being asked to respond to GenAI while the technology, rules and products keep changing. Some teachers are already experimenting. Others are unsure where to begin. Both groups need more than a list of tools and prompt tricks.

They need practical answers to classroom questions.

When can AI improve a design activity? When does it make the task too easy? How can a child check an answer that sounds certain but is wrong? What happens to authorship when a machine produces much of the visible result? How can a teacher include pupils with different levels of digital access, confidence and support needs?

Future Designers will address these questions through design challenges and project-based learning. Children will use GenAI for activities such as research, ideation and prototyping, but the project will keep attention on how they make decisions and explain their choices.

That distinction matters. Producing an attractive image is not the same as having a good idea. Receiving an answer is not the same as understanding it. And typing a prompt is not yet co-design.

Five results, one practical route

The project will produce five connected results.

The GenAI Starter Kit will give primary teachers hands-on activities, lesson ideas and guidance on benefits, risks and ethical use. It is intended as an accessible starting point rather than a small textbook disguised as a PDF.

The "Design with GenAI" Teacher Training Bootcamp will take teachers further. Through in-person and online learning, participants will explore how GenAI can support research, idea generation and prototyping inside design projects. The training will also address bias, misinformation, overreliance and the occasions when AI should simply stay out of the lesson.

A Teacher Ambassador Network will connect educators across schools and countries. Teachers will exchange classroom experience, including the attempts that did not go according to plan. Those stories are often more useful than a flawless demonstration.

Video tutorials will turn the project’s training into short, reusable learning resources. Teachers will be able to revisit the material without waiting for the next workshop or remembering which slide contained the useful bit.

Finally, an Advocacy Toolkit will translate classroom experience into guidance for school leaders, educators and policymakers. It will include a manifesto and policy recommendations for responsible AI use in design thinking and project-based learning.

The Starter Kit, training materials and tutorials will be available in English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.

Built with teachers, tested in classrooms

Future Designers combines several kinds of expertise. Designathon Works contributes experience in child-led design education. Asociación Comunidad de Aprendizaje Activo brings an evidence-based education perspective. Change of Course contributes digital learning and AI expertise. Scholé brings project-based learning and school practice. Primary school partners in the Netherlands and Belgium will help keep the work connected to real classrooms.

That last part is essential. Educational resources can look wonderfully tidy until they meet a class with limited devices, a weak internet connection, several languages, different support needs and approximately four minutes of teacher preparation time.

The project therefore includes desk research, user research with teachers and students, peer review by educators and experts, teacher training and classroom pilots. At least 18 teachers will take part in the training activities, and project pilots will involve at least 50 students across the partner countries.

The partners will collect feedback throughout the process. The goal is not to prove that AI makes every lesson better. It is to learn where it adds value, where it creates new risks and what teachers need to keep children’s learning in the foreground.

What success would look like

By the end of the project, a teacher should be able to pick up a Future Designers activity and understand what to do, why AI is being used and what pupils should learn beyond operating the tool.

A child should be able to use AI as part of a creative process while still recognising the difference between a machine suggestion and a human decision. They should be able to question output, discuss bias and ownership, and explain how their own thinking shaped the final work.

School leaders should have clearer guidance for responsible adoption, rather than being forced to choose between an enthusiastic free-for-all and a ban that will age badly.

Future Designers will share its research, practical resources, training and classroom learning as the project develops. The first task is straightforward to describe and difficult to get right: help children work with powerful machines while remaining the authors of what they make.

Follow Future Designers as the Starter Kit, teacher training and classroom resources take shape.

Source note

This article uses only the approved Future Designers: Responsible Co-Design with Generative AI in Primary Education Erasmus+ KA220-SCH project proposal.