Fifteen years is a long time to hold a professional crush.

Last week, I finally visited The Nueva School in the Bay Area, thanks to decade-old client-turned-friend Lee Fertig, its Director since 2019.

When I started NoTosh, it wasn’t to put more laser cutters into craft, design and technology classrooms. It was to prise design thinking out of the workshop and place it everywhere.

Because when I worked at Channel 4 as a Commissioner, I noticed something brilliant, and exceptional.

Every production company - whether they made fast-turnaround current affairs, web games for teenagers, early iPhone apps, or blockbuster films - used the same underlying process.

They explored and described genuine problems worth solving. They prototyped the answers to UnGoogleable questions. They iterated those ideas into media. They tested with audiences. They critiqued each other’s work.

They were fluent in design thinking, even if they never used the phrase.

So I wondered: if we can approach Shakespeare like product design, why can’t we teach maths, history or physics in the same way? (And, by the way: if you watch Hamnet, you’re watching the result of disciplined design thinking from director to cast. Watch some of the making-ofs and you’ll see what I mean.)

It’s possible. It’s powerful.

But, jings, it’s hard.

By 2019, I’d almost concluded that for many schools - most schools - it was simply too much effort. Accountability pressures and data dashboards, curricular maps designed to show where the educational bodies are rather than to show the way... Seedlings pulled up to check they’re growing.

Nueva decided to do the opposite.

No grades until 10th Grade. And even then, fewer than most. Students choose how they’ll approach assignments. They define success criteria. They stretch themselves.

That kind of autonomy is uncomfortable. I only experienced it in my final Honours year at university. I’d read and analysed 400 fairytales, but instead of writing an essay about my findings, I wanted to write the most perfect fairytale. The pressure is greater when no one tells you what “good” looks like. You have to design it yourself, and then exceed it. (I got a First in that.)

Nueva lives there.

But here’s what struck me most about their method, their system. It wasn’t the project boards or i-Labs as much as something more heartfelt.

It was the rituals.

Here’s one. In the week before this February break, the school runs a student-led “Kindness Week”. At the top of a staircase: walls covered in red envelopes. Every student. Every educator. Every staff member. One envelope each.

Over the week, notes of appreciation are quietly written and posted. Then everyone takes their envelope home, to read on Friday night.

It’s simple. It’s organised by students. It happens every year.

It’s a system. A ritual. A routine that encodes culture.

When you talk about being on a rising tide, or playing with A Players, this kind of routine shows it (rather than just telling people you’re good).

In our strategy work, we often say the systems matter more than the slogan. Vision statements are glossy. Rituals are operational.

So what’s the ritual that defines your school? Could you name twelve: one seeded each month, each quietly shaping behaviour and culture?

If not yet, start with Kindness Week.

Any week will do.