Designed for Life

This is the official podcast of the Design and Technology Association. 'Designed for life' aims to entertain, inform and inspire, bringing the worlds of business and industry together. Design and Technology is a wide-ranging curriculum subject that, along with qualifications in other facilitating subjects, can open doors to students across an ever-increasing breadth of career. England was the first country in the world to introduce this subject to its mainstream curriculum offer in 1988. Where we led others, have followed and in various guises, it is now taught in countries around the world including India, Australia, China, USA, France and Finland. This podcast consists of a series of short, informal conversations with people from across the worlds of education, industry and design. The intention is to help to link business, industry and education, as the solutions to tomorrows problems are being educated today!

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Designed for Life

Designed for Life - In conversation with Goldsmiths University - Part 1

July 24, 2026 • Tony Ryan • Season 6 • Episode 4

0:00 | 53:16

Goldsmiths, University of London is one of the longest-established providers of D&T teacher education in the country and, over the years, has been instrumental in helping shape the subject that we now know. In this short mini-series of two episodes, we spent a day at Goldsmiths talking with Alice Hellard, who leads the PGCE programme at the university and some of this year's graduates who, at the time of recording, were just days away from completing their course.

At a time when trained D&T teacher numbers are at a record low following years of under-recruitment and a central neglect of the subject's curriculum value, this seems as good a time as any to get 'under the hood' of one of our major teacher training organisations and see how things really are and, just as importantly, how they feel to the new teachers about to enter schools as Early Career Teachers (ECTs).

As you hopefully relax on your well-earned summer break, I hope you can find time to grab a cold drink, sit back and listen to Designed for life - In conversation with Alice Hellard and graduating PGCE students from Goldsmiths University London.

Alice Hellard completed her PGCE in Design & Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London almost 20 years ago before teaching in two south London schools. She is now back at Goldsmiths where she leads the PGCE D&T programme. In these podcasts we also hear from students on the programme: Josie Beardsmore, Nikki Blustin, Steve Cheung, Tyla Garrett, Rajinder Kalsi, Patrick Readings, Ed Thomas, Nick Thomas and Noah Thompson.

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pgce/secondary-design-technology/?https://www.gold.ac.uk/&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23383165810&gbraid=0AAAAADF9-XDCJh-u42U6ADj7hpY1fdMdD&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjb3SBhDgARIsAMKiWzjwgb20eW9Alyla9YqQrNCAzA1MixdXYmxs1y1djagUpKf_BuX3oNsaAg91EALw_wcB