Polymath: Book 11 - The Understand The Future Book - UK Year 5 / US Grade 4

It’s 2050. A sustainable-food systems architect is gliding home in her solar-drift pod after a long day redesigning vertical farms. As she watches the skyhook rotate in orbit, she remembers a moment when, years ago, her teacher handed her a workbook about the future. That was the click, the realisation that the future wouldn’t let her in unless she found the key.

The future doesn’t come with a manual, but we think it should.

Children should not just watch the world go by. They’re going to inherit it, so we made a workbook to help them understand what lies ahead.

Jool’s Understand the Future is a 3-month Polymath course for children aged 8–12 who are curious about where the world is heading and what role they might play in it.

Because by this age, children are already imagining what they might be when they grow up, this course hands them the tools to make that choice wisely by helping them understand the bigger systems they’ll be part of. 

Each unit zooms in on a different aspect of life that’s already evolving at high speed and likely to completely transform in the years ahead: AI, food, education, travel, even the self.

Beyond reflecting on what might change, students are invited to poke holes in current systems, pitch alternatives, and invent strange, smart, maybe-possible futures. It's basically time travel disguised as homework.

Meanwhile, they will be learning how to explain their ideas clearly, argue ethically, and write like they mean it.

What your child will do:

• 🔮 Predict how the world might change in the next 10, 100, or 500 years
• 🔎 Research, collect information, learn to reference their sources
• 🧠 Examine diverse perspectives and emerging trends to form reasoned predictions, not absorb fixed ideas
• 💡 Find solutions to future problems
• 💬 Debate the big stuff: robot rights, climate choices, edible insects
• 🌍 Learn vocabulary that decodes the future and imagine the words of tomorrow
• ✍️ Practise structured writing (because great ideas deserve great paragraphs)
• 🎨 Invent new careers, reimagine schools, and create better ways of living

Includes:

• 12 full weeks of tasks, from comprehension to expression
• Self-paced for afterschool or homeschool use
• Vocabulary building, storytelling tips, debate practice and scaffolded essay writing
• Integrated multimedia tasks (videos, audio, oral presentations)

Ideal For:

Students aged 8–12 | Homeschoolers | Gifted & Talented programs | Kids who obsess over robots and weird inventions | Kids who worry about the future (because they might just find hope!)