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Talking D&T
Talking D&T is a podcast about design and technology education. Join me, Dr Alison Hardy, as I share news, views, ideas and opinions about D&T. I also talk about D&T with teachers, researchers and academics from the D&T community.
The views on this podcast are my own and of those I am interviewing and are not connected to my institution. Much of the content is work in progress. As well as talking about D&T, I use it to explore new ideas and thoughts related to D&T education and my research, which are still embryonic and may change. Consult my publications for a reliable record of my considered thoughts on the topic featured in this podcast.
Podcast music composed by Chris Corcoran (http://www.svengali.org.uk)
Talking D&T
[Archive] Shaping the Future: The Evolution and Advocacy of Design and Technology Education with Tony Ryan
If you are interested in helping the Association evaluate their Inspired by Industry programme, sign up here: https://bit.ly/IBIinterest
What happens when we look beyond textbook projects and expose 11-14 year olds to real industry design challenges? Tony Ryan, Chief Executive of the Design and Technology Association, reveals how they're transforming technical education from the ground up through their ambitious "Inspired by Industry" programme.
Six years into his leadership role, Tony shares his passion for rebuilding design education with a fundamentally different approach: focusing on complex problem-solving rather than simply making products. "If we go to government and say, 'You need to back design and technology because we make stuff,' we're finished," he explains. Instead, they're creating resources that develop future innovators who can tackle "gnarly complex problems" with tenacity and creativity.
The Association has partnered with over 300 companies to create authentic, challenging design briefs that elevate student expectations. One example involves a professional designer's project creating dinosaur suits – not just costumes, but immersive experiences that teach ergonomics, materials science, and design thinking. These free resources include comprehensive teaching materials with videos featuring young professionals students can aspire to become.
Complementing this secondary focus is remarkable growth in primary school engagement, where 20% of English schools now hold membership. Through initiatives like "Projects on a Page" and equipment loan schemes for 3D printers and sewing machines, non-specialist teachers are gaining confidence in delivering high-quality technical education.
The work extends beyond resources to research and advocacy. A planned evaluation programme will measure outcomes, providing crucial evidence for lobbying efforts already yielding results – as seen in the recent House of Lords report calling for "urgent action" to address the decline in design education. As Tony puts it, their mission is creating a subject that's "design-driven" and produces students "not afraid of tackling complex problems and not just replicating what's been done before."
Explore how the Design and Technology Association is reimagining technical education for a generation that will change careers 16-17 times and interact with technology "at a pretty high level, whether they like it or not." The future of design education starts here.
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This is one of the episodes that I've pulled out for the summer from my archive of episodes. I've picked these because they're a longer play and I'm thinking that maybe you've got time to do some more relaxed listening over the summer. This episode from the archive is a conversation I had with Tony Ryan, the chief executive of the Design and Technology Association. It was a part of my Shaping D&T series and Tony was talking about some work they've been doing at the association to reshape design and technology and support teachers in thinking about what they're teaching and how they're teaching. As part of this, the association produced some fantastic resources called Inspired by Industry, and myself and others are currently involved in evaluating these resources involved in evaluating these resources and so if you're listening and it's the summer of 2025 and you're in England and you're using those resources, then drop me a line because I'd love to hear from you so you can get involved in giving us some feedback about what's working well about these projects. Anyway, on with the episode.
Speaker 1:So this is an episode in the Shaping D&T podcast series where I've got different people to come along and talk about how and why they think we're in the Shaping D&T podcast series where I've got different people to come along and talk about how and why they think we're in the current situation, what could be done and what might be done.
Speaker 1:So today I'm talking to Tony Ryan, the Chief Executive of the Design and Technology Association. Been on the podcast before and we've also had lots and lots of conversations over the years about design and technology, but Tony's here to come and talk about what the Design and Technology Association are doing to kind of redress some of the difficulties the subject's going through, but also to move the subject forward over the next few years in terms of developing the curriculum. So, tony, just in case there are people listening who haven't heard of you before, can I just give a brief bio about who you are and where you are and what you do absolutely, um, as you say, chief executive of the dnt association have been now for, uh, quite unbelievably six years.
Speaker 2:No, yes, six years, and uh, six years last month or the start of this month. So, yeah, it flies by um. And before that I was a secondary head teacher and a head of design and technology many, many years ago. So I've sort of gone the whole journey right away and generally enjoying it.
Speaker 2:I am not generally. I mean I'm enjoying it. I'm I'm I'm blessed to be doing what I do at this stage of my career, to be able to hopefully positively influence where D&T ends up. Um is just uh, it's a blessing. So, yeah, I do enjoy what I do. I love it.
Speaker 1:It's hard work but I love it yeah, yeah, I know every time I speak to you you're kind of. You're kind of full of it and full of enjoying meeting different teachers along the way, and hearing about what they're doing, the projects in the pipeline.
Speaker 1:So do you want to give us a bit of a context to the reimagined stuff that's come out from the association and then we can kind of unpick a little bit about what, what that is and what's available for teachers in england and also beyond, because I have a bit of an international audience. It'd be good to maybe include some of those as well absolutely.
Speaker 2:I'll get you with your international no I said a bit a bit, you know might be wales.
Speaker 2:That's all good, that's all good. Um, yeah, let's, let's, let's start. I mean we're, I guess where we're slightly different is that we are building from the bottom up and I think many times the subject has built itself from qualification down and I understand that. But I don't think that's right this time around. We have got huge growth. We ended last year on 20% of all primary schools are now members of the association, which is phenomenal really, because it was three and a half, four years ago. We were less than 4 000, about 3 500, and that continues to grow and ofsted driven absolutely um. But we've got that good base coming up. So we feel that we've got a sound base to build on.
Speaker 2:Um, we still got lots of work to do at primary and we are digitizing a lot of our offer at the moment for primary and that will be there by the end of this year. We hope so that that work's still ongoing um. But where we see the real problems at the moment is um, and I'll get to key stage four and five later on, I hope. But but key stage three I mean over the years, not just in our subjects but in many subjects, it's been called the lost years. It's been called the sort of wasted years there's.
Speaker 2:There's many sort of cliches being put to it, but I think we really need to focus on key stage three because, um, we've got kids coming through and I know this is not going to be everywhere, it really depends on your feeders and and how engaged they are but we have got kids coming through that have had quite a complete experience with design and technology.
Speaker 2:They've been doing iterative design. They they've been engaged in cash, they've been engaged in 3d printing in some schools, um, and if we're not careful and and I'm I'm using this to to make the point, I'm not saying this is the case in every school across the country, but they do all that iterative stuff at primary and then they come in and then they make a safety poster in the first six weeks, and then they make a pencil case, and then they make a clock, and then they make a cushion, and I think we've got to up our game. I really do think, as a subject, we've got to up our game. Part of the big thing that we're involved in and have been involved in over the years is lobbying for the subject.
Speaker 2:Yeah been involved in over the years is is lobbying for the subject, yeah, and I know that politicians will say well, you know, if you, if you're about making, you're about making clocks, pencil cases and and things like that, then actually you're finished because we can't back that. We, we need to back something that's far bigger than that, um, and I think we are far bigger than that. So, at Key Stage 3, where we've gone and we've called it Inspired by Industry, because it is is that we've looked beyond the examination, and I think that's really important for all of us to do to look beyond that exam and just say what is the life that the students we're teaching now? What is the life they're going to live? And I'm not just looking at work, I'm looking at, I'm looking at the, the social aspects of that. I'm looking at, um, the technology that's going to affect their lives. I mean, ai is one example, but there are many others out there and they're going to live in a very complex world and they're going to have to interact with technology at a pretty high level, whether they like it or not, and I think our job is to educate them to do so.
Speaker 2:Um, part of life is work and and and the guys coming out in in three or four years from education are probably going to work until they're 70 plus, so they're going to work for a long time.
Speaker 2:They're going to change career maybe 16, 17 times as the, as the research suggests, um, and the biggest skill sets that we're going to give them are going to be the, the personal human skills, the tenacity, the ability to work in groups, the ability to work alone, all of those things. So what we did is we, we put a shout out on linkedin over a year ago now it's about a year and a half ago and said look, we, we need real problems that you are trying to solve at the moment, um, and we don't care what your company is and we don't care what you do, we just want you to give us those problems, don't water them down, and we will work with you and we will try to work to position that same problem so students can attack it um 11 to 14 years old, and we've been in inundated allison, we've, we've, we did a little count last week and we've got over 300 companies now that have reached out and said that they want to work with us on this.
Speaker 2:That's great which is amazing. And, uh, we've had some great companies that have come and have said look, we, we love what you're doing, uh, we, we, we love the fact that it's real, uh, and we love what you're doing, uh, we, we, we love the fact that it's real, uh, and we love the fact that it connects up what we're doing in industry with what's going on in in education. I don't think there's one of them that's come in and said you know, what we really want out of this is we want eight workers that are going to come out and work for us.
Speaker 2:It's not, it's not about that, you know, it's not that direct, but it's the skill sets that we are engaging students with that really excites them and video was a really important part of this and I got myself into trouble big time by saying that you know, I didn't want 55 year old blokes on on videos. And then every 55 year old in the country reached out and contacted me and said what am I finished? Now? That's not what I was saying. I said it very badly. What I was saying was I think it needs to be videos of people that are in their 20s. Um, students at school can actually look at the video of the designer, the engineer, the electrician, whatever it might be, and actually say I can be that person. I didn't realize that was a job I could do that. Those skill sets I can see me in five, six seven years' time, so roughly within reach, and distance, actually having those skill sets and being able to do that job.
Speaker 2:So we started with nine and we had nine up in the. We launched it on the 28th of September last year and we've put another three up this year which have gone up last week. So we've now got 12 there, and there's two sides to it. First of all, most of it's free. Nice, that's been a hard ask of my trustees because I walk the line all the time. We're a charity. We're not here to make money, we're here to break even, and we have to break even because otherwise we don't exist. And these things are expensive because there's a lot of video editing in there. There's a lot of time goes into them as well, each one. We actually underestimated how much time it takes us to produce each one, but it was important that they're free because we want people to be able to adopt it and we don't want finance to be the barrier that's in the way. So we've made them all free and the trustees have backed me with that.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean we've lost money last year as an association.
Speaker 2:That's why you're still there, that's why I'm still there, because I'm cheap. But no, they I mean it's a decision that the trustees made is that we feel that this work is that important that we have to dig into our reserves and fund it. So that's what we've done last year is we've dug quite deep into our reserves to fund this work. We need to find funders moving forward, because I can't keep doing that, but our ambition is to produce 30 plus of these, so, as teachers, we'll get a choice of how they put a curriculum together. Each one of the units of work and I don't want to call them projects, because a project suggests that you're making something at the end of it to me and you might be on this and some of it is process led rather than um, product led, um but each one of the units has got, um, uh, quite a stack of video in there. There's also a brief in there. There is, there is supporting text, uh, there are worksheets, there's everything you need to deliver it in school, we think. And then for members, behind the member paywall, as it were, there are further videos and there are further support units. So we've got, for example, so if somebody's not familiar with CAD and is not sure which package to use. We've got almost every package package you could use. We've got support units for them which are there.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to build this up and we we realize as well. We've gone out, ryan's gone out, I've gone out. We've spoken with teachers and they love it. Is the feedback truly positive? But also, what they're saying, even some quite experienced teachers, is this is not something we've done this complex, that low down the school before. So we're going to need help because we're not really confident in delivering this to 12-year-olds. You know it's hard enough to deliver it to 15, 16-year-olds is the message we're getting. So, alongside this, we're going to do free webinars. We're going to do free inset as well, so as we can help teachers to implement this. The last bit I want to say really is it's all mapped to national curriculum as well. So you're not doing this in isolation. In an ideal world, it would self-populate. As you pulled it off our website. We're working on that, but from an IT perspective, that's quite expensive at the moment. Um, but it is all mapped to national curriculum so you can actually see what you're covering as you pull each unit down.
Speaker 1:Um, that's it, that's right okay, so you've given us the background and how these these units have worked. So you've got 12 out so far, aimed at key stage three.
Speaker 2:We've got that right, yeah, yeah, hope for another 18 we will have 18 to 20 by the end of this year, and then we're continuing to next year as well. We're going to keep keep making them. As I say, we've got more companies than we can actually work with at the moment, but what we're doing is we're using the companies to just give us a video or two that adds to other companies work. So, uh, ux experience, for example, we've had one agency that have just said look, we can do a couple of videos just on that, and we can, we. You can then use those across a number of different units of work um so yeah, we're.
Speaker 1:We're working across the board there, so 20 by the end of this year is our target so can you, can you talk me through one example of a unit of work, and then what I'll do is I'll put a link up to that in the show notes so people can also look at that. So an example of a unit of work and what, what you're hoping the pupils are learning from that and how that would develop them um, let's.
Speaker 2:Um, let's pick an easy one. So let's pick, let's pick one that's proved quite popular at the moment. I mean, the download figures are pretty good. The streaming figures are high at the moment, so it shows that teachers are looking at them, which is great.
Speaker 2:Um, we worked with a designer, a very small company, um, and he's mad on dinosaurs personally. It's his thing personally and he's got small children. And it started with him making an outfit for his son who was, I think at the time, three years old, and he said I wanted him to. He said when you're three years old, you don't pretend that you're a dinosaur. You become a dinosaur if that's what you're doing. And he said I wanted to help him to do that. I wanted to. I wanted him to become that dinosaur, so I wanted him to be able to put on an outfit that part of which he designed himself and put together himself, which allowed him to either emulate a dinosaur that we all know, so he could be I don't know brontosaurus or whatever it might be, or he could create his own one and he could make his own one up and name it himself, etc. So there's a little bit on there on materials. There's a little bit there on levers, linkages, there's a little bit on how we join stuff together and how we actually finish it. There's quite a lot on there on ergonomics, where we're looking at body shape and size and we're looking at how do we make something fitter so as it's tight and it's gonna, it's gonna fit well and that has been has proved quite popular. It's one of that's the biggest download at the moment. Now we've supported that. We've supported that quite heavily.
Speaker 2:Um with uh, scaffolding materials, because it's a year seven project and what we've done is, as we've gone through eight and nine, we've then taken the scaffolding off a little bit. So hopefully our students get used to this type of work. By the time they get to year nine you'll be able to let them go a little bit further. But at year seven we're not expecting much of the students. You don't have to use the scaffolding, but we've scaffolded it really quite highly.
Speaker 2:So there are templates in there that you can have the basis of the suit. If you want to start from that, then different material suggestions that you could use in using, for example, cardboard to start with and actually using simple tools to cut out the cardboard and model it. There's a unit on modeling there so it can show you exactly if you want to do this to scale. How do you, how do you make this model to scale to make sure it works, before you go to the bother of making it full scale and cutting it all out?
Speaker 2:But then different materials where you could recycle off cuts from acrylic that you've got, perhaps perhaps in hanging around, that have been cut off from Key Stage 4 projects maybe, where you could reuse these and reshape them and they could become part of the outfit. So the student is thinking about the design, they're thinking about the actual wearing of it, but they're also thinking of the aesthetics of it and the fit of it at the same time. So there's quite quite a bit that you can actually put into that unit so quite a lot.
Speaker 1:So within the unit, if I'm getting this idea right, is that you're giving the teacher choices as well as the teacher, then you're then helping the teacher decide what choices they're giving the children, if that makes sense very much.
Speaker 2:So what we didn't want were sort of off-the-shelf projects that teachers could just lift and teach, because there's a number of problems with that. I mean, I know from teaching myself that I don't think I've ever taught anybody else's project well when I've just updated it. You've got to make it yours, you've got to make it your own and you've got to add your own bits to it. And you know your kids better than anybody else knows. So you know what will work with them and what won't work with them. You also know what they've done before and what they're going to do thereafter. So you make the project fit into the context of where you are. So you make sure you get that progression as you work through. So it was really important to us that it gave teachers enough for them to actually see how they might fit this into a curriculum, but not a fixed solution that they just lifted off the shelf.
Speaker 1:No, right, okay, okay and so. So, what's so? What's the anticipated or the hoped for outcome of of all of these units of work? What's the association hoping in terms of, you know, addressing the situation that subjects in, in terms of its decline or its status, or you know what? What's the?
Speaker 2:aim, for reasons that are probably too deep to go into in the time that we've got here. I I feel that nationally, um, and this changes from school to school, so I'm not painting the same picture with every department, but we've got into a cycle of you know what, when the students come in, we do this and then we make that, and then we make that, and then we make that, and then all of a sudden, at year nine they're going to be iterative designers and what they've done is they've made a series of things and they haven't really engaged deep enough in some of the concepts, um. So, for example, you know material science. Have they really looked at materials? Have they looked at what's possible with a material? Can you bend it, can you shape it, can you weld it, can you do various things with it?
Speaker 2:And by the time students get to year 10 and they start year 10 at key stage 4, you really want them to be pretty well versed in a number of different materials, a number of different processes. You want them to be able to think on their feet. You want them to be able to be little innovators, really, where they're really quite, quite okay with design as a concept. And, in answer to your question, I think we're trying to change pedagogy slowly. We're trying to, we're trying to guide the subject towards one which is design driven and where we're gonna, we're going to produce students that are actually not afraid of tackling complex problems and are not just replicating what's been done before. You know, here are 10 clocks, aren't they nice? Now go make your own one.
Speaker 1:Right. So when you say the aim is on pedagogy, so you've talked about the outcomes for children. Pedagogy is around the teachers. So what are, are you? I suppose you're sort of into that and you're trying to shake what might be for some teachers, um, an innate belief that it's about the outcome, it's about the product. Yeah, trying to shake some of that up as well with, I think we have question I think we have to.
Speaker 2:I mean all the conversations that that I've had over the six years that I've been in post, with people that are in a position to dictate curriculum from government perspectives. Making is important. I keep saying this all the way through. You know, I'm not saying that making is not important. It's an integral part of what we do, but it can't be everything that we do. It can't be what we're about.
Speaker 2:You know, if we go to government and say, do you know what? You need to back design and technology because we make stuff, we're finished. Um, you need to be able to go and say we are creating the innovators of the future, we're creating the problem solvers of the future. We're creating people who really can think through gnarly complex problems and will not give it up. They will stick with it, who are going to be able to go out there and even if they never work in the sector, if they never work in stem and they don't work in design, they're going to be able to tackle complex problems and they're going to be able to actually have a system that they can work through, where they can tackle these things.
Speaker 2:When you start presenting it that way to policy makers, they get it, they absolutely understand it. But if you say we're going to have kids that I mean I've heard on previous podcasts. I know you don't like the word vocational and I don't like it either, because it it it minimalizes what our subject is all about. Our subject is much bigger than that. It's much wider and much we can. We can create much more through ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my, my challenge about it is vocation is about where people have made choices, and what you're talking about in key stage three is a general education.
Speaker 1:It's all children and not all of those are going to go into, as you've said, those different vocations, and neither would we expect them to, no matter how good the subject is within a school or how it's all children and not all of those are going to go into, as you said, those different vocations, and neither would we expect them to, no matter how good the subject is within a school, or how strong it is or the outcomes are so good.
Speaker 1:That isn't what we would want, because we need a balanced society. So that's where I struggle with the word vocation. I struggle with that kind of pre-14, almost even pre-16 uh, language really. But yeah, yeah, okay. So it's about. So, on one level, it's about developing the pupils in, in what the association feels is what's needed from the subject um, to benefit the pupils, whether that's in the workforce, home life, society and so on teachers in terms of their pedagogy, and then using the evidence from that to influence government to say this is what the subject is actually really about yeah, all of this is absolutely worthless if we don't um have a proper research program that goes alongside it.
Speaker 2:Um, and I know from experience that if you go to government ministers and say, look, we're doing this, isn't it great, they'll go yeah, that's very, very, very lovely. Where's the proof that it works? Yeah, and if you can't present that proof, you're finished. So, alongside this, we need a research program which is probably 18 months, two years, in length, which follows the journey of schools that have not done any work like this at Key Stage 3 before, but then introduced. And I should say I'm not looking for schools to introduce a project in year 7, year 8 and year 9.
Speaker 2:I think that's too much. I think you pick one year group and you pick one of the units of work and you say, right, we're going to trial that first and we're going to see how our kids get on with it and how we get on with it, and then we're going to build it from there. So, over a period of two or three years, you'll build this up, um, but we need to measure it and we need to be able to prove that this is making a different, not not just a student engagement, but also for attainment, that students are actually progressing with this and they're making um fast progression in certain areas. Um. So you know, their, their problem solving is progressing, their ability to take an idea from their head and get it onto paper or onto cad is progressing, etc. Um. So, yeah, we, we, um we need to research as well alongside it.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, because it adds a strength to it, doesn't it? You have to have a good evaluation, and the evaluation might give you outcomes you don't necessarily want, but at least you've got them, and you've got something then to reflect on, to feed back into the programme as well.
Speaker 2:It's the bigger risk you take when you do anything like this.
Speaker 1:Is that you do?
Speaker 2:your evaluation and it tells you that the direction you've started out in is not where you should be going. There is a role in that.
Speaker 1:Or it might have an unintended consequence that is actually beneficial that you haven't thought of.
Speaker 2:It may well do, and you've got to be open when you go into it, and we are. I don't think for one minute that we have got the solution that is perfect and is going to bring the subject back to where it was at the early 2000s. But I think we've got a solution that will help point people in the right direction and it will evolve from here.
Speaker 1:So that's for Key Stage 3 and it's all freely available. Is that freely available to just schools in England or beyond? There's no restriction on it.
Speaker 2:At the moment there's no restriction on it. I must admit we are talking about whether we should restrict it, whether we should for schools overseas, whether there should be a small charge for getting access to it which will recoup some of our outlay on it. You know our job. I see our job very much as um assisting and rebuilding the subjects in in england, wales and northern ireland. Um yeah, that's where the association works and that's where we want to have that traction. I don't see the job of the association necessarily as being building the subject in saudi or hong kong or wherever it might be australia, or yeah yeah, I mean, if, if we're producing materials that people can use, that's great, that's great, but that's not our purpose.
Speaker 2:That's not what I'm looking for. I want dnt education, uh, in the UK to be back where it was at one time, where we were the first country in the world to ever adopt it. We need to be back and innovating in that position again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, so that's Key Stage 2. What about Key Stage 2 then? What about Primary? What's the association doing there? Because you had an increase in membership.
Speaker 2:So what are you doing there? To shape the subject, projects on a page has been a godsend, um. Now, for those that don't know what projects on a page is, it's it's now 22 different units of work, um, which at the moment are in pdf, and what they do is they give you everything that you need to deliver that unit of work. They give you the glossary of terms, they give you the step-by-step how to deliver it, even to the point where we negotiate with all the main suppliers for kits of 30, and you just press a button and it actually orders the whole lot for you and it comes to the school. So we've tried to make it as easy as possible for non-specialists to deliver design and technology, which is where we are at KeyState 2.
Speaker 2:Now what we're finding is, whilst there are a lot of non-specialists out there, they're picking up stuff really quickly and, for example, we've, we've, uh, we, we started a loan scheme for um compute, uh, for 3d printers about a year and a half ago with create education. Yeah, that's, that's now booked up right away through 2024. We, we are now completely booked with primary schools waiting for a half term for these machines to go out to them so they can use it in school. Um, that's the sort of demand that's out there at the moment, and they will trial these things. You've got to hold their hand through it because they are non-specialists. So there's a video with that, with that equipment, that shows you how to get it out of the box and how to get your first prints. We've got curriculum materials alongside it that give you a curriculum problem where you can ask students to actually design solutions to it, and the aim is that every student does at least 3D prints during the course of a term, so they know how a 3D printer works. They know how to design for it. There's CAD built into it as well. You join the two together and at the end of it, the school gets an option to keep that 3D printer at a reduced cost, and many of them are now At the end of it.
Speaker 2:They're saying we're not giving this back, we want to keep this. We're going to do the same thing with sewing machines. Now we're working with sewing machines, where we are working with a provider who I won't name at the moment because we're still working it through, but the idea is that you'll get the same loan of those into primary schools, along with an online system which will teach you how to sew in in uh, seven weeks. So we're trying to widen the curriculum and broaden the curriculum at primary um, and there is an appetite for it. They do want to do it. They're nervous because they've not done it before, and most of them the last time they did stem and this is not, this is not um slighting them in any way, shape or form the last time they did stem was when they were doing gcse themselves. Most teachers yeah um.
Speaker 2:But once they see the engagement of the kids and and it does come back, and this is not just anecdote, this is fact you can hide some tricky science within dnt. And because the kids are so much fun they don't realize they're doing tricky science. If you told them it was tricky science, they, they balk at doing it. And the same with maths you can. You can do some really quite complex maths within key stage two, d and t.
Speaker 2:And because the kids have got a purpose to the maths, there's a reason for getting this right, because then I can make that and I can move on to there. They want to do it and they're not afraid of it. So once the primary teachers see that, they fly with it and they want to do more. And I must admit there's a little bit of that at key stage three as well now, because we've got a lot of non-specialists teaching the subject at key stage three who need similar support. So that's the idea with the inspired by industry is we're giving them that support that they can try it themselves before they try it with a class oh right, okay, yes, I've forgotten about that program.
Speaker 1:So you said inspired by industry. I was like thinking, oh, that was the same as the units of work. But no, that's another part of the whole package, isn't it? Um, so, that's developing their subject knowledge. So it's kind of developing their subject knowledge apps through that, but you're working on their pedagogy as well and at key stage two.
Speaker 2:What we're working on now is we want to take the pdf 22 units of work at key stage one and two and we want to digitize those so they can be used with interactive boards in the classroom at primary. So if we're doing gearing, for example, which is quite tricky to do, you can actually model it on the board and you can pull two gears together and just see what happens when you put it. So we're trying to do that. That's.
Speaker 2:That's um expensive, yeah I was gonna say that sounds, that sounds a huge undertaking it is, but I think that's the way that we push the subject forward, because once you get it so as teachers and students can interact, uh, virtually, with some of the trickier parts of the subject at key stage two, then I think we overcome barriers that otherwise will be in the way. Yeah, so we, we do need to go there, and that's something we're we're tackling this year so lots, lots going on, lots going on.
Speaker 1:Are you starting? Well, you said you're starting the research at some point, so you get the evaluation. Yeah, is there? Is there a next strand to it? Or where's where are you taking your lobbying that you can share with us about how the association is shaping the subject?
Speaker 2:the um, the lobbying is probably 50 of my job at the moment. Allison, it's um, it could be all of my job. It's the honest part to it, but it can't be because there's other bits that we've got to do. Um the lobbying really is is um, it's being in the right room. This is where I've narrowed it down to the definition. I've narrowed it down to it's been in the right room with the right people, with the right message. If you can get in that room, I know that I can sell the subject because I love the subject. So if somebody wants to listen and gives me 30 seconds, I have now you talk for just 30 seconds, really, I can.
Speaker 2:I know it's hard to believe, but I can. It's that and that was unnecessary.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Speaker 2:I know that's the elevator pitch. You know and you're going to get that. Sometimes You're going to get a politician that is just passing you on their way to somewhere else. They're looking over your shoulder because they don't want to be with you. They want to go to somebody that's more important and you've got to drop something in 30 seconds that's going to stick with them and I've got that. I've also got the two minutes, I've also got the five minutes and I've also got the half hour, and what we're trying to do is get that message not just through myself, but we've got ryan working really, really extensively out there at the moment as well, and an example is the House of Lords report that came out on 11 to 16 education just before Christmas. It came out at an unfortunate time because it was literally a week before the Christmas break, but that is really potentially ground shifting Any government coming in if it reads that we need a big change progress.
Speaker 2:Eight isn't working. The creative subjects have been marginalized and are dropping off the curriculum nationally. We need to address that. It actually says any government. One of the urgent actions on there is for government to address the decline in design and technology with urgency. Uh, I mean, that couldn't be more direct than that. Um, so now the job of lobbying is to make sure that any government, whether it's existing government or government coming in at the end of this year, listens to that, picks it up and then starts to work on it and starts to build it into their plans.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't think education is going to be a big part of the election, uh, electioneering going forward. So I think I think there are going to be other things, like the economy is going to be there, the nhs is going to be ahead of us, I think, a climate, exactly, uh, and also it's a volatile world at the moment and those things are much higher up and whether whether we like it or not and I don't like it actually, every time somebody talks to me about boats, my skin creeps. You know, I'm an immigrant, my parents were Irish, so when you start talking about people coming over as immigrants, it doesn't sit kind with me, but it's going to be higher profile than education, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be a. It's going to be higher profile than education, whether we like it or not. It's going to be a hard battle to keep it on the agenda, isn't it? Or to keep the profile, and and within that massive scope of education, design and technology, is a small component.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not to belittle the subject, but it is a small, small but important and, um, I think you get what you want through repeating the message over and over again. You've got to keep saying the same thing in different ways so people actually start to think it's their idea, not yours.
Speaker 1:And through the units of work and the projects on the page and the stuff that you do in primary as well, through the printers and everything. You've then got evidence to show as well, haven't you? That's the other side of it.
Speaker 2:That's really important, because otherwise it's just a nice gown that you've got on, but you're still in the same shoddy clothes underneath. You know, you've got to make sure that you've got that, I think that was mine, wasn't it, that phrase? No, I don't know, but I like it.
Speaker 1:I think I said to somebody at the DfE we can if we change superficial parts of the subject. It's like me I can change my dress, but I've still got the same tatty bra and knickers underneath you did.
Speaker 2:I stole that, Alison.
Speaker 1:I didn't realise that but I don't really want everybody thinking about tatty underwear at this stage, for either of our perspectives definitely not.
Speaker 2:No, but we need to have more substance to us. Yeah, we do?
Speaker 1:We do absolutely. And having that evidence of what's happening in schools, I think, particularly with the loss of local authority as a coordinating factor, in that it's not so easy to see. I know we've got some fantastic people in the academy trusts who are leading design and technology, but they're not always so easy to find in a way, as the local authority subject leads were to be able to get that evidence from those sorts of groups, isn't it so? It must make that level of communication and community in some ways much more difficult.
Speaker 2:It does, it does, it's more fragmented than it's ever been, and it's it's difficult to talk to academy trust leaders, because that you know, you, what you really want is one email where you could send them all an email. Yeah, that doesn't exist, uh, and, and they, and, and they are hidden, really, because I understand why they're hidden. You know, as a head, I was hidden because otherwise you've got a million emails every day, um, but it makes it very, very difficult to actually get the messaging over to those people, and they're the people that will either kill or or make the subject thrive in schools.
Speaker 1:Um, and if they don't understand the subject as well.
Speaker 2:So that whole communication about, from the association about the subject is is key it is, and I don't think um, I don't think austerity is going to go from schools anytime soon. I think, whatever government we get, we're still going to have very tight budgets in schools and it's going to be an easy option to cut designer technology because it's expensive, so we need to show it doesn't have to be expensive.
Speaker 1:Uh, all of these units of work that we talked about on inspired, they're all aimed at minimal resources being used to actually deliver them, because we realize that many schools have just not got the budget no, well, you know the resources, the budget and the staff expertise, and you know, as you keep saying, that's not to demean those who are doing what they're doing in schools, but you know, we know there's a shortage of teachers in design technology, but it's not just dnt, it's across the board, isn't it really? That's great at that point.
Speaker 1:But um so yeah, so anything that's done that's practical, you know, um, that's taking the approach they're taking should should be helpful to teachers. So you've got a lot on I'm ready, ready in January.
Speaker 2:There's a few bits that we haven't talked about. I just want to talk very quickly. I don't want to neglect Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5.
Speaker 2:Yes, you did say I don't want people walking away from the podcast thinking you know what. The association isn't looking at. Those we are. Our aim this year is to start working with the awarding organisations to start looking at what a revised key stage four offer might look like.
Speaker 2:Um, and we've already established, I think, quite categorically that there was too much content in there, and everybody, including the house of lords report, actually says there is too much content, not just in our subject, but in most subjects. We need to slim that down. So we need to start having conversations. If we are going to slim it down, what? What would we take out? And then the other bit that we're starting to connect with at the moment is there is anecdotal reports is what I've seen at the moment. I haven't seen evidence based on this, but but anecdotal reports that the universities don't value design and technology and therefore they thought that they were doing psychology or they would rather they were doing another, a level instead of design and technology and therefore they thought that they were doing psychology or they would rather they were doing another, a level instead of design and technology. I've not seen evidence of that.
Speaker 2:We're starting to work with a number of universities now and we're asking those questions. You know, do you value it? Um, what we're finding, what's come back at the moment and it's small scale at the minute. We've got to go bigger with this is that they do value it, but there's just so few pupils that are doing it at the moment that they can't demand it. If they demand it, they'll they won't get the bums on seats that they need at the end of it, so they're leaving it early, um, and if a student comes to them with psychology, physics and maths, they'll take them. Um, but we need to show the value of dnt now. Does that mean that the changes is not needed, needed at a level? I don't think so. I think I think we need to look at that as well, but it will be late 2025 before any government starts thinking about curriculum reform. Um, yeah, we need to start putting that together this year, ready for those changes when they come. So we are working on that as well all right, okay, that's good to hear.
Speaker 1:So, so really the whole spectrum. I mean, I suppose key stage one, early years, is that kind of early years.
Speaker 2:We're not doing very much at the moment, I have to be honest. Uh, key stage one and two, absolutely yeah, three, and we're starting to talk about four and five. The emphasis at the moment is undoubtedly on twofold it's. It's on digitizing projects on a page to make it more accessible to more primary teachers, and it's on the inspired by industry work at key stage three.
Speaker 1:Right, okay so a lot, a lot's going on, a lot that I'll be sharing. I've made notes as we've been talking of things to put in the show notes, so people have got links to what you're doing. I'm going to do a follow on episode on Thursday to explore a little bit more about some of it and I'm talking really about teachers and agency and how you're building that into the project as well. So I do another Thursday episode for subscribers to listen to. So thanks very much, tony, for your insights and and sharing all of that. I mean you've managed to share a huge amount in 40 minutes of recording.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, because there's so much going on and you know you said at the beginning that you've been there for six years and it has taken that time and to kind of plan it and to work out what the way forward is. So it's good to see some outcomes from that and be excited to see, you know, whether it's having the benefit for the pupils, the subject, the teachers that you anticipate. That's the next exciting stage and hopefully you'll come back when you've got some of that to be able to share in a bit more detail.
Speaker 2:I'd love to Thanks for inviting me on, and it's great to have the opportunity to just share what we're doing. We me on, and it's great to have the opportunity to just share what we're doing. We are excited by it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I should say as well I work with an amazing team.
Speaker 2:When you work with a team that is absolutely everyone is invested in in the outcomes, um, that's what makes it a joy, that's what makes it fun yeah, and that really comes through.
Speaker 1:That it's I mean it's you that's talking about it, but it's it's. You've got a whole team behind you and that really comes through when you see it on LinkedIn and the whole team's talking and engaging about it in the same way, and it does take a team to create all of that work. So, yeah, so well done to everybody at the association and thanks, tony, for sharing it, and I'm hoping that somebody else from the association will come on and maybe give a little bit more detail about some of the units or some of the work that's going on at the association as well to share that in more detail too.
Speaker 1:So thanks very much, you're welcome, thank you, I'm Dr Alison Hardy and you've been listening to the Talking D&T podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, then do subscribe, on whatever platform you use, and do consider leaving a review, as it does help others find the podcast. I do the podcast because I want to support the D&T community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your D&T community. If you want to respond to something I've talked about or have an idea for a future episode, then either leave me a voice memo via Speakpipe or drop me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast and how to connect with me on my website, dralisonhardycom. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron. Links to SpeakPipe, patreon and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.
