Empowering D&T Teachers: Inside Wales' Curriculum Reform

In this episode of Talking D&T, I chat with Dr Bethan Gordon, Dean of Cardiff School of Art and Design at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Bethan, a human-centred designer by training, has been deeply involved in developing the new curriculum for Wales.

We dive into the fascinating world of curriculum reform, exploring how Wales is revolutionising its approach to education. Bethan shares insights on their focus on developing both the curriculum and the teachers themselves, introducing the concept of 'teachers as inquirers'.

Two key points really caught my attention: firstly, the emphasis on empowering teachers to critically examine their practice and make evidence-informed decisions. Secondly, the integration of design thinking into the science and technology area of learning, while also promoting creativity and problem-solving across all subjects.

For D&T teachers, this episode offers a treasure trove of ideas to reflect on. How might an inquiry-based approach enhance your teaching? Could the Welsh model of positioning D&T skills across the curriculum offer fresh perspectives for your school?

Whether you're teaching in England, Wales, or further afield, there's plenty here to ponder and discuss with colleagues. It's intriguing to see how different education systems are evolving, and I'm keen to hear your thoughts on how these ideas might shape the future of D&T education.

This conversation with Bethan certainly gave me food for thought about curriculum development and teacher empowerment. What aspects resonate with your experience? Let's keep this important dialogue going!

Acknowledgement:
Some of the supplementary content for this podcast episode was crafted with the assistance of Claude, an AI language model developed by Anthropic. While the core content is based on the actual conversation and my editorial direction, Claude helped in refining and structuring information to best serve listeners. This collaborative approach allows me to provide you with concise, informative, and engaging content to complement each episode.

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Chapters

• 0:54 Welsh Curriculum Transformation Through Inquiry"
• 9:52 Empowering Teachers Through Reflective Inquiry
• 16:52 The Evolution of Design Education

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:55

you're listening to the talking dnt podcast. I'm dr allison hardy, a writer, researcher and advocate of design and technology education. In each episode I share views, news and opinions about dnt. This week's episode is another one for the Shaping D&T series and it's part of a mini series within that where I'm talking to different people who are working and have been involved in curriculum. That's kind of like design and technology in England, but they're in different countries and so today's actually is within the whole UK, but actually when you start to unpick what the D&T curriculum looks like in different parts of the UK, it's quite different. So today I've got Bethan Gordon from Cardiff Met to come and talk about the Welsh curriculum, which has recently undergone quite a radical change. So, bethan, we'd like to introduce yourself, say who you are, where you are and what you do.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 1:51

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. So yeah, my name is Dr Bethan Gordon. I'm the Dean of Cardiff School of Art and Design and work in Cardiff Metropolitan University. I'm a human-centred designer, so trained as a product designer, but I've been quite heavily involved in working with the Welsh Government around the curriculum for Wales and developing teachers as inquirers.

Alison Hardy: 2:14

It's been quite interesting to hear about who's been involved in developing that curriculum, so can you give us a little bit of background about why it was changed and how they went about it and what its purpose was?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 2:23

Yeah, absolutely. In 2015, donaldson was commissioned to write a sort of a significant change piece, you know, evaluate the current curriculum in Wales and then identify uh, you know what, what, what could be developed and what could the curriculum in Wales look like? Um, and from that he developed, um, a framework that could reform what the curriculum for Wales looked like and what it could be, with different priority areas around skills and knowledge and competencies. And what he recognised in that was that, actually, in order to develop a new curriculum in Wales and this was all of the curriculum you need to also develop your teachers, and that was also recognised as a key priority in any curriculum change in Wales. So that that's where it started.

Alison Hardy: 3:13

That's a really interesting take, isn't it? To thinking about developing the teachers? It's not just about developing what people might just see as a document or a web page or something.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 3:23

Yeah, and I think that was really significant piece if any any bit of change and significant change that you do that you have to recognize that there's a different skill set required by those who are going to own it, and one of the things that the Welsh government wanted to do, though, wasn't to impose a top-down curriculum. They actually wanted it to grow from the bottom up, and in order to do that, you require to develop teachers. In order to develop content, you've got to develop teachers, so they recognised that was a really key priority in this, this body of work and so how did you get involved?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 3:57

so when the curriculum wasn't quite ready to be um, hadn't quite been launched, I was involved in a, a body of work that sat alongside it, which was about developing teachers to be inquirers. So it was recognizing that actually, if we're going to ask our teachers to use this curriculum, which was a framework, and then develop their own curriculum within it, you've got to empower them to do it. You've got to help them understand the key attributes to do that, which was inquiry. And so I was Cardiff Met, and other HEIs at higher education institutes around Wales were asked to put a bid in to say well, actually, how might you deliver this, how might you be part of it? We were quite different.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 4:36

In Cardiff Met. We decided to have colleagues from a school of art and design and colleagues from our education and our sports and health science school. We decided to actually do an interdisciplinary team because we recognised that would be the benefit to the curriculum and I actually went in supporting the expressive arts attribute of the new curriculum. And then, as I was doing that, they were doing writing workshops with teachers and they were writing these because in Wales you have six areas of learning, a-o-l-e's, six areas of learning experience yes and I was pulled into one of them to do a little talk about um that you know how?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 5:19

how had I developed and and um and co-developed the curriculum in cardiff school of art and design, so you know, to support the teachers in developing their curriculum. So I was. I was it was sort of serendipity that I was in a space developing teachers as inquirers and then I was called into another room and to say, right, help us, you know, help us with the writing of this area of learning experience as well. So so that's how. That's how I got involved.

Alison Hardy: 5:44

Right, ok, so. So can we just unpick a little bit then about this thing about teachers as inquirers and this collaboration of developing curriculum.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 5:56

Yeah, absolutely. So. I mean, when we talk about the term inquirer, it's really the practitioner inquirer. And how it's different to research because in essence it's research is that we say that, well, research, you're aiming to publish your work, so you have that criticality. Publish your work, so you'll have that criticality. And you know the literature review. Um, you know, and test different principles.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 6:18

Um, in inquiry it's the same process, but actually it's practitioner inquiry. So it's about developing teachers so they can either develop new content they're either looking at performance or they're looking at their school performance plans and understanding what are our priorities. But fundamentally and this is the bit where I come in as a designer it's the same principles as design thinking and design. Um, you know where you're challenging your assumptions, you're making evidenced, informed decisions, and how might you do that? So actually, me as a designer, I talk about design thinking and inquiry and how they coexist and how they work together.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 6:52

So so it's about it's fundamentally giving teachers a toolkit. It's not new, it's what they do and it's also meant to be a way of thinking. So inquiry is a way of thinking, not a bolt-on. So, but they realized that it's all very well asking teachers to do this, but you have to support them in developing this skill of being an inquirer, and that's why where myself and my team it's not just me, myself and my team come in to do this, so I'm kind of seems to quite a bit going on then.

Alison Hardy: 7:20

So you've got the bit about sort of you and your team sort of showcasing your practice, about how you've worked and then from that, developing, helping teachers think about developing the way they do what they do, but being aware of what they do in terms of inquiry and developing their practice, is that right? Have I kind of got?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 7:42

yeah, that yeah, absolutely, and I think that's the important bit. Actually it's, um, it's helping the teachers understand that quite often this isn't new and they have engaged with it previously, or it is their way of thinking. And sometimes there's, um that that nervousness isn't it? Of new terms and new language that we use. You know, particularly in the education landscape, um, that instantly barriers go up because you're like, oh, that's new.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 8:06

I don't know what that is, but actually I found that part of my role is definitely helping the teachers understand you have done this. You may have done it as part of your teacher qualification, you may do it a standard practice, you may actually deliver this to your students as well, to your pupils, and I just help them understand that actually it's accessible. It's just different language, but it is it's accessible language. I ran a workshop actually only last week around inquiry and creativity, and that was the first, one of the first things I said when I introduced inquiry it's not one model, there's a multitude of models, and you know, and I asked who has done a master's, who has done a PGC, who has done these different qualifications? And I said so, actually you have engaged in inquiry, you've engaged in research, so I find my role is about bridging, bridging that, yeah, yeah, it's really interesting.

Alison Hardy: 8:59

I was having a conversation with two teachers last night recording another episode for this series and and they're doing a project with me and we were talking about how teachers get involved or don't get involved and how they're responding to some of the things that the three and the team are asking and they're saying some of the teachers are quite, quite resistant and and it's it's kind of getting them to think about. Well, actually the teachers are, you know, the dnt teachers. What they do with the children all day, every day, is quiz what the children are doing. Why are you doing like that? Have you thought about this? Can you explain why? But actually we kind of, as teachers, they forget to do it to themselves and to each other, and that inquiry around why, how should we? Can we um, and realizing that they're doing it? That makes sense yeah, absolutely.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 9:52

I mean, I think we often take for granted, or don't stop and do, that reflective piece, um, you know and I, and understand how to do. What is it that we do and what are those key attributes? I mean, creativity is a classic. I always say, um, you know, oh, you're so creative, but actually do we know how we're creative? And it's the same in um, in design, you know, there is a philosophy that underpins design and those key attributes of the philosophy, that philosophy, you know, being inspired and discovery and applying it, are the same principles of inquiry. So you're absolutely right, they do it day in, day out.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 10:28

But quite often the resistance is the choice of language, is not necessarily um recognizing that they do it, but it's also the perception of time and how. This is an additionality and actually say, well, actually, no, this isn't additionality, this is adding criticality and evidence and criticality to make sure that when you implement something new, that actually that's something new and you know has got thought and consideration behind it and it is evidence, informed and isn't gut feeling yeah and that's the key.

Alison Hardy: 11:02

Yes, yes, because that um, you know, we know, we know in england, but very much the government are looking for what's the evidence? Um, and so I suppose this process of helping the teachers, helping them remind them that they've done this, they know how to do this and they're actually doing it, and doing it visibly, adds a I want to say a rigour to what they're doing. I was not saying what they were doing in the past and getting lost, but you know what I mean.

Alison Hardy: 11:34

It's that you have to do it externally, so other people can see the process and see the thinking yeah, absolutely, and you're absolutely right.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 11:42

It's not saying the rig is not there, it's not saying they're not doing it. Um, evidencing is important, but it's actually about managing the risk, isn't it? So if you're going to change something, that is, a whole departmental approach to how you deliver design and technology, that's a really big shift, that's a big change for the pupils, a big change for the teachers, and therefore you're taking a risk. So how can you gauge that level of risk? How can you mitigate or gauge the risk that you're taking and have confidence in the risk that you're taking? And this is design we're talking about, isn't it? You know, how do you decide which idea is the one that you're going to pursue, where you actually manage the risk in your in, in deciding that. And it's the same with a changing curriculum, designing curriculum and making change. And it's actually that inquiry approach or that design approach that underpins it. So it's evidenced, informed. So yeah, it's not to say it's not there, it's just being cognizant and that word is so key now cognizant of what we're doing so can you define that word?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 12:42

well, oh gosh, yeah, um, so cognizant, it's awareness, isn't it? It's actually. And that's when I mentioned reflection, that's what I meant. It's not to say people don't reflect, gosh, we always find ourselves, you know, daydreaming, reflecting. But actually, where we truly empower our teachers and our pupils and ourselves is being really conscious about how we get there.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 13:04

And the term problem solving is another classic one. Everybody says, oh gosh, problem solving is so important, oh, you're very good at problem solving. But do we actually say, well, what are the key attributes of problem solving that mean that I can repeat it and make me good at it? And it's the same, you know. It's the same with creativity. Oh, you're so creative that drawing is beautiful. Well, the skill of drawing is very different to being creative, because you don't have, you know, the skills are one thing that do help. But, um, creativity in itself has a process and if we're cognizant and we're aware, we can repeat it time and time again. And that's where, in Wales, in the curriculum, one of the things that they are trying to do is to ensure that it's not just about a package of knowledge that you get at the end. Get at the end, it's actually understanding how you acquired that package of knowledge and how you can repeat those steps time and time again, for you know for your future, for your future self and the future generations so what, what, um?

Alison Hardy: 14:05

what impact have you seen then?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 14:08

well um. So having started this six years ago, being involved in six years, what I've seen is quite a transformation in the schools and the teachers that have been involved, you know, truly empowered and confident. We've seen teachers publish in there's a Welsh journal for education. We've seen them publish their work, but I actually I'd say it's the empowering piece, that's the most important bit. And because the change? Because there is a, you know it was called the new curriculum.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 14:43

I often drop the word new because how long can you keep using the word new curriculum? You know, but there is the curriculum for Wales and it's being able to recognise that you're designing, you know, a curriculum aligned to we've developed what matters statements. You know a curriculum aligned to we've developed what's matters statements. You know what matters in this area of learning experience. You have the tools to design it yourself in your school context, in your geographical context. So it's relevant, it has authentic experiences in it and we're just seeing that teachers are more confident in that. But we've also seen the quality of um, of their literature reviews and their writing go up. So it's been, it's been a very powerful seven years, lots and lots of mixed practice. But that's because, for a number of reasons people might not have qualified as a teacher. They might have qualified rather like 20 years ago, or they might have qualified last year, and it's very different yes, yeah, and they might not have come through the welsh teacher education system well, there's that as well.

Alison Hardy: 15:43

Yes, yes that brings all sorts of all sorts of challenges. So that's, that's about teachers and inquirers. Then what about? So design and technology? You said there were these areas of learning and you talked about the expressive arts. Does design and technology sit within there or does it sit somewhere else?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 16:02

oh it sits somewhere else. It's really interesting. So design and technology sits um within a technology science and technology, sorry. So that's in itself its own area of learning experience. And what's really interesting with how they've developed that one is that they have put in design thinking. So for the first time we're seeing this acknowledgement of you know, there's some I would be biased. I'm very passionate about design, but within design there are this fantastic enabler, so they're called design thinking, that can be applied to all walks of life and so they've put that in. But what's really, what's really interesting, what sits above all?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 16:47

The areas of learning experience, the six areas of learning experience. You've got four purposes that's the entire curriculum is aiming to achieve. Got four purposes, that's the entire curriculum. It's aiming to achieve these four purposes. Then you've got the skills to deliver the four purposes and in those um, in those skills, you've got creativity and innovation and critical thinking and problem solving. So what's? You know what whales are saying that these are whales, are? These are really important attributes in all of our education, not just in design and science and not just in expressive arts.

Alison Hardy: 17:22

So they're bigger than a subject.

Alison Hardy: 17:25

They're kind of underpinning. They're the essentials that run through. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because when design and technology was in its origins in England in the late 80s, 90s, you know some people who've been sort of working in this field beforehand are very much. This isn't a subject, this is across. You know, we had initiatives in England that went across, initiatives in england that that went across because it wasn't seen as you can't, you can't contain it.

Alison Hardy: 17:59

And then in I think it was around about I'm trying to think when I started at nottingham trent around about 2010, 2011, I can't remember it.

Alison Hardy: 18:07

It was pre-change of government and but obviously it was still in existence because the new government hadn't made any changes. There was there's some work around cross-curricular and it had all the subjects, but obviously it was still in existence because the new government hadn't made any changes. There was some work around cross-curricular and it had all the subjects, but it had design and technology. It's like across the bottom because it's this idea about creativity, design thinking, problem solving, whilst in D&T we might say we kind of own it and we lead it. Actually it's, it's there across. Now david spendler might argue that the difference in design and technology is the design thinking. The creativity leads to something that makes a change, whether that's a system, a product, over which and other other subjects might argue the same. But um yeah, but it's quite, it's quite interesting to sort of see this sort of cyclical difference different countries, different areas thinking this yeah, and I think you're right.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 19:02

You know, wales saw the same thing. You know, design and technology were seeing lots and lots of different subjects that came together in some respects it permeated everything and it had everything in it and then, you know, lost a bit of identity, yes, and then throughout the years, you know, we saw um, craft and design and technology, um, and then, you know, then we recognised all the value of manufacture and craft and then, oh gosh, we've got the art, you know, and so it's been this subject. That's kind of, although design and technology does have in itself such a strong identity, but it's kind of like, throughout the years it's lost its identity, I suppose in Wales, in Wales in the curriculum. Now what they're doing is in Wales, they're, they're in Wales in the curriculum. Now what they're doing is they're they're. Wales has a really strong foundation phase education and is hailed for it and recognized for its foundation phase, and so it kind of took the learning from that and to understand, well, what can we do to permeate all of our curriculum with that?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 20:05

And that is about interdisciplinary experiences. It's about understanding that nothing exists in isolation. The complexity of that is then understanding that, the significance and the role that all these different subjects, expertise play within that. And we know that whenever anything interdisciplinary is developed, you've got to be grounded in a discipline and in a subject in order to understand how it then relates to other areas. And I think I'm living in hope that what we'll see in design and technology in in in Wales is that you will get that recognition of design and technology and its key attributes, the, the. You know the actual process and what it offers being able to generate idea, what research, generate ideas, prototype and make. You know make with purpose and physicality in the design, understanding the science that sat in it, be it psychology or be it um. You know engineering sciences and then understand its relationship to art and craft and be able to do that interdisciplinary piece. So I am I am hopeful. It will take us a while to get there, but I am hopeful but you need to have.

Alison Hardy: 21:14

You need to have teachers within the subject who have a clear understanding about the boundaries of the subject. It's its unique identity and that's where I think I sometimes get frustrated when I hear well, it's an essential subject because it uses knowledge from geography, and you think actually that that actually weakens the argument for the strength of the subject if that's the primary argument.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 21:37

Yeah, yeah, it's a good point because, like I just said, you need to truly understand the discipline that you come from in order to understand the relationships that geography or biology will have, will have in this. And yeah, and it's. It's interesting when we look at the numbers of students that studying the pgc design technology in wales, in in cardiff, met. The numbers are strong. This year we're, you know, they've got about 20 students on it. They're doing well and that's the.

Dr Bethan Gordon: 22:06

That's a strong set of numbers, and we set up an initiative of a throughput from the school of art and design into the um, the, the pgc, and that's paying off now um, and we have a school philosophy of that interdisciplinary curriculum experience but ground them in their discipline, yeah, um, and hopefully when they do their pgcs they retain that philosophy and they're also being they're being um, taught and educated on inquiry and the approach to inquiry and eventually what we'll see is this will start permeating the teaching landscape and if we, if, if they do go over to um england, then it'll start permeating england, maybe as well have an influence on your neighbor.

Alison Hardy: 22:51

Yeah, I mean, I'm a great advocate for that teacher as, as an enquirer, that practitioner um in terms of you know the practitioner experience and their inquiry and that validation of it um to to influence curriculum change, but also to to hold that, that their subject, their space, whilst that inquiry is going on, if that makes sense yeah, because it allows for agency, doesn't it as well?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 23:20

and that's really that's the really key for ownership, and agency is so key for any curriculum development, any reform. Um yeah yeah, yeah.

Alison Hardy: 23:30

And so what's next for you involved in all of this? Is your time coming to an end or have you got further ideas?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 23:36

wow, interesting, interesting. So, um, welsh government, one of the agendas around inquiry has been about. We have been developing a number of schools um, in South Wales region, and I work with other HEIs who are helping and supporting schools in their region. One of the things that we've realised, though, is that this has to be sustainable beyond having a higher education institute involved, and it has to permeate more than the individual teacher that turns up and is part of this programme. So we're working quite hard to work on sustainability, and how do we develop these key attributes?

Dr Bethan Gordon: 24:11

So the teachers themselves, then, are the ones that have the confidence to ensure that this permeates their school, a whole school approach to inquiry, or a whole cluster, which a cluster we call the schools that are feeding up to a secondary school. So we're involved in that, and I mean currently. Another project I'm engaged in is also around inquiry and to do with creativity, and it's about how creativity can support the not classically creative subjects you know. So we're. How can we support teachers to develop this by using inquiry, and so it goes on and on.

Alison Hardy: 24:47

I'll always be involved in this in one way or another, but, but the aim is for every teacher to have this toolkit and and hopefully we'll make that accessible and support them in that, so yeah, so hopefully, um, I'll be able to get from you some any links to people that people can find a bit more detail about it online and uh and think about how that might be sort of useful for their practice.

Alison Hardy: 25:10

That'd be brilliant, brilliant well, thanks so much beth, and that's been just been fascinating to hear about what's happening in wales and, I have to say, for me personally, it really resonates with one of my key drivers about supporting teachers in realizing that what they do is they are engaging, they are inqu, inquiring and, yeah, yeah, I love it, love it, thank you. 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.

Alison Hardy: 25:52

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.