Threading the Future: Dawn Foxall on Textiles Education in D&T

In this episode of Talking D&T, I chat with Dawn Foxall, founder of the Textile Skills Centre. Dawn's fascinating journey from knitwear designer to opera singer, and finally to textiles education advocate, sets the stage for our wide-ranging conversation.

We delve into the current state of textiles education within D&T, exploring the challenges faced by teachers and the need for a more comprehensive approach. Dawn shares insights from her recent research, revealing surprising findings about teachers' preferences for textiles within D&T versus art and design.

One key takeaway is the importance of broadening our perception of textiles beyond fashion. We discuss how textiles intersect with various industries, from automotive to medical, highlighting the subject's relevance and potential to engage a diverse range of students.

The conversation also touches on the crucial role of assessment and curriculum design in shaping D&T education. We consider how exam boards and chief examiners influence the subject's direction and discuss the need for more up-to-date, relevant content in specifications.

For D&T teachers, this episode offers food for thought on how to present textiles as a versatile, technology-driven field. Consider how you might incorporate examples from diverse industries to showcase the breadth of textiles applications. How can we collectively work to ensure that textiles remains a vital part of D&T education? 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 Textile Skills Center and Design Education
• 10:51 Supporting Textile Teachers and Education
• 16:50 Examining Design and Technology Curricula
• 30:51 Pathways in Textile Education

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:55

you're listening to the talking d and t podcast. I'm dr alison hardy, a writer, researcher and advocate of design and technology education. In each episode I share views, news and opinions about dnt. So today I'm recording another podcast as part of the Shaping D&T series and I've got the pleasure to be talking to Dawn Foxall. As usual when I'm talking with people, we've already had a pre conversation where we've been laughing and talking about all sorts of different things. I'm sure we'll refer to some of those maybe as we're going on. Um, but yeah, so dawn's here from the textile center. So dawn would like to say who you are, where you are and what you do hello, um, great to be here talking to you, allison.

Dawn Foxall: 1:41

Um, yes, my name is dawn foxall and I am from the textile skills center and I'm actually situated in lemmington spa. So that's but you've been.

Alison Hardy: 1:50

You've been quite a way around the world doing lots of different things before you've landed in lemmington Spa. So that's. But you've been quite a way around the world doing lots of different things before you've landed in Leamington Spa, haven't you?

Dawn Foxall: 1:57

you were telling me I have yes, I've had a quite circuitous sort of like arrival here. I'm originally from Bridgenorth in Shropshire, so I'm a Solopian, a Shropshire lass, and I went to Shrewsbury Art School, did my foundation and then I ended up in Nottingham, trent Poly, as it was then, as it was in Trent University I like to say it's a university, but it was a polytechnic at the time and I got my degree in knitwear design. It was a four-year sandwich course and I learned everything that I needed to know about knitting, about, yeah, about yarns, about fashion, about everything. And I ended up staying there and setting up my own little business, um, and then joining up with two print designers who were equally at Trent and they, uh, between us we created a brand called Cocky's Shed which lasted about six years, I think into the early 90s.

Dawn Foxall: 2:51

And, um, we were, we were sort of like the forerunners of cotton lycra and we were printing it with all sorts of things you shouldn't print on cotton lycra, but we were. We started selling, we were doing all the shows in London and we started selling it all over the world and it should have gone on to be a big success. But there was a recession and three girls with not a lot of business now and, um, you mean, we were selling into brands, like started selling into brands, naively, into brands like, um, miss selfridge, and we had a stand in, we had a place in top shop on that was then on oxford circus, um, uh, a concession, and we were, we were, but anyway the recession just broke us basically. So in I think 92, 93, 94, I just decided to go off and do something completely different and I ended up getting doing a master's in opera performance.

Alison Hardy: 3:52

What a change, what a change of career.

Dawn Foxall: 3:55

Well, I'd been singing in bands, all my sort of like college life and all right up until that point. So I was a bit of a you know, exhibitionist performing on stage. I loved it. We toured all over. We toured Ireland and all over England. We did lots of things, um, but I went and had some singing lessons and I got into opera. I was given the habanera from from Carmen and I went off and I did a this master's at um Birmingham Conservatoire and I loved it.

Dawn Foxall: 4:28

Whilst I was doing that, I continued to work as a design consultant for what was then a trade association called NADCAT that then became M-TEX, east Midlands Textiles Association for all the in for the industry basically in that area and it was a huge industry in in, you know, the 90s, 80s, 90s it was huge. There was so many cut and sew places, so many manufacturers. You know there the 90s, 80s, 90s it was huge. There was so many cut and sew places, so many manufacturers. You know. There's courtholes, there's all the big names. It was amazing to be in that area at that point in time because there was so much going on, and so I was working as a design consultant there and then eventually, yeah, yeah, I went and did this master's and uh, yeah, sort of, from there on, I then got, I then got a job working over this way, which is, uh, in Warwickshire actually, they were in Worcestershire because it's just towards, uh, the Warwickshire border and I ended up in um Warwick, in Leamington Spa, and that job took me to, um, I was setting up a brand and working, uh, uh, managing a brand called Live. I set it up and managed it called Live and that brand, uh, we were, I was designing and then sourcing organic, then organic cotton product for clothing product, bed linens, towels, stuff like that, anything to do with anything that touched your skin. Basically, because the main brand was an organic skincare brand that they sold and they wanted their own brand. So we, we started, I started doing this and I was. It was my dream job.

Dawn Foxall: 6:14

I was traveling, traveling to India. I was traveling to um Egypt. I was going to the farms in India, to the cotton farms, talking to the, to the pickers, to the, to the farmers. I was going to the gin ginning places. I was going to the weavers, the knitters, the manufacturers.

Dawn Foxall: 6:33

It was a brilliant job. I loved it and I learned so much, so much doing all of that. I was pretty much the knowledge of, you know, fair trade. We actually helped. I helped the Fair Trade Foundation uh formulate their, create their fair trade um standards, and we were the first brand I was the first person to actually create an all 100% organic fair trade collection knitwear collection um, in the UK. It was just fantastic. It was, yeah, you know, I was just in my element, I loved it, and then the main brand went bust.

Dawn Foxall: 7:18

Okay, so I ended up um, that was 2014. I ended up. I was talking to a colleague um, louise Davis, from the food teacher center, and she said textile teachers need you, dawn um. They need your knowledge, they need your, they need your enthusiasm, your passion for for textiles. They need you to help them build resources and and lead them, however, um. So I uh did some events with her and I set up what was then called the textile skills academy, which we we then changed in 2020 to the Textile Skills Centre, and that's how I've come to be doing what I'm doing.

Alison Hardy: 8:02

So you and I have met, through attending some of the national meetings around the future of design and technology and putting together policy documents, to kind of think about what the subject could evolve into, as it kind of comes under threat from lots of different directions, haven't we? And so that's been. That's been great to meet you, and I know, with the work with the textiles uh skills center that you've, you've led some work around canvassing textiles teachers or teachers who are specialists in textiles. I think that's kind's kind of about their thoughts about the subject. So I suppose where are you positioning the centre at the moment? What does the centre offer to textiles teachers and design and technology? What's its role? What do you do?

Dawn Foxall: 8:47

I think when we first started to understand what was happening, uh, in terms of what was happening with textile teachers, we started hearing all this stuff about schools dropping textiles and, um, you know the the, the way that the dnt gcse shaped up, it wasn't working for a lot of textile teachers and for lots of different reasons. Um, and departments were sort of like not supporting the actual um you know changes that have been made and they weren't supporting these textiles teachers and encouraging textiles in in the schools. Um, we, I mean, I'm I'm not a politician, I'm not really. That's not really my thing. I like to be in the background doing stuff, but I just eventually felt that we, textiles as a subject, needed a voice. Yeah, and I, that was why I got involved with the groups that we, we were working with. Um, it was just to give textiles a voice. Because I've never been a teacher, as in, I've been lectured in universities, but I've never been a teacher, so I've never taught the gcse. I've never taught, so I haven't never had that experience. I mean, my, my colleague, nikki simpson, taught it. She's taught all, all of the the GCSE. She's taught more, each board, everyone, um, whether it's art and design, or and so she, she has been my sort of font of knowledge in terms of what's been going on. But we both really felt that textiles was not getting um, the subject wasn't being talked about and it wasn't being included somehow. And so we, I just thought I'm just going to have to go and do it, I'm just going to have to go and talk about it, and so I think the textile skills centre has now positioned itself as the voice for textile teachers we have.

Dawn Foxall: 10:51

We understood early on that they were. The textile teachers were not getting any support from anywhere. There was nobody. I think there's only one other person who was really doing anything and that was Julie Boyd, and she's done a brilliant job. She's very D&T, yeah, but there are a lot of teachers who had been changing, moving from D&T to art and design and struggling there because they'd never taught it and didn't have the skills.

Dawn Foxall: 11:14

So so nikki was able to come along and we were able to create courses that could support those teachers. So we now have like a mentorship program and we have um built our whole sort of like our basis in terms of volunteers, people coming forward and supporting what we're doing. So we we get no money from anywhere else unless we sell a course. Somebody comes on one of our courses, um, so this is, this has been, this has been, it's been hard, it's been a tough, especially since covid I mean covid, definitely we realized before then that we had to go online and COVID enabled us to actually well, you know, forced us almost to make that move, and we started things like the tea and chat. So we do a tea and chat every month and that's a great little networking hour that we get our teachers to come along and, you know, listen to another teacher or listen to an art, a textile artist, or talk about stuff, you know, and it's that's been brilliant. The, the mentor, the mentoring, the mentorship scheme has been hugely valuable to lots of new teachers and teachers new as in, you know, um, etcs, whatever who have not taught textiles before or never been trained in textiles, um, but there's I mean, there's loads of issues that we could go into, but I think that's where we are as a, as a, as an organization, is. We're a bunch of passionate textiles enthusiasts who are trying to support textiles, to continue in our education system and support those teachers.

Dawn Foxall: 12:55

Um, I think that the, the report we we decided to that. We needed to do a bit of research and see if we could actually support with evidence what we were hearing. Yeah, and so we got together, we managed to get a small bit of funding to um do a report um last year and um. So at the end of last year we did a survey and we, we got um expert groups together, teacher groups and industry groups together and we created this um created we, we, we did this research and wrote a report um. A colleague, roy ballam, was a big you know, massive help in this.

Dawn Foxall: 13:36

Yeah, a lot of the of the work um, and we wrote this report and it. We launched it in march, end of march time and it's had a great impact. I didn't realize what sort of impact it would have and it's been really well received. People have been talking about it, are still talking about it, right, um, you can find it on our website if you if you want to go and have a read yourself, but it it was quite um revealing in lots of ways and supported lots of the thoughts, the idea. You know the things and the questions that we'd raise. It supported a lot of that. So what was one of the key? What was one of the thoughts, the idea you know the things and the questions that we'd raise. It supported a lot of that.

Alison Hardy: 14:15

So what was one of the key? What was one of the key issues that came out?

Dawn Foxall: 14:18

well, I think one of the things that was surprising was we we sort of kept hearing that that dnt um, you know it wasn't working it, it wasn't the right, you know it wasn right and that art and design was the way forward. Because there wasn't an exam it was, you know, for those students who couldn't do exams it was much easier, obviously, to do a more creative thing, and the complaints were that D&T wasn't creative, giving that sort of like freedom of creativity. But actually when we got the results from the surveys, it didn't really reveal that.

Alison Hardy: 14:56

Okay.

Dawn Foxall: 14:57

Which was really interesting.

Dawn Foxall: 15:00

I think the big thing was that most teachers would like an in, you know, a separate gcse, or to not go backwards but have a um, a gcsc, which is a dnt gcse but has a proper strand, textile strand, pathway, um, that, that, uh, it you know, as it sort of previously was, and I'm not saying that was great, but this, you know it as it sort of previously was, and I'm not saying that was great, but this, you know it's certainly the one that we've got at the moment isn't working for a lot of teachers, but I think we need to like, definitely revisit, and the results that we got sort of showed that a lot of teachers would stick with a D&T GCSE if there was a stronger, a more clearer pathway.

Dawn Foxall: 15:49

I think the exam has been one of the big sort of like hiccups, with there only being like one or two questions on in some of the specs for in the exams, um, and you know the wording not right and uh, sort of you know things that things that that there are, there are I'm not going to go into detail, there's no point uh, but there are things wrong with it. Um, that could be quite easily put right and I think that was one of the big yeah, I know, I know you work quite closely.

Alison Hardy: 16:19

You know the exam boards attend those meetings as well, don't they? And that's always been quite interesting to hear their, their perspective. I think one of the things that I remember reading I read a journal article quite a few years ago was about the power of the chief examiner, and it was actually a paper about geography and it was saying how because the chief examiners, for example, for a subject, tend to be a teacher, so they hold a huge amount of power, whether they realize or not. I know there's checks and everything from the exam boards about the direction of the papers and any coursework. You know the non-examined assessment, and so I suppose it'd be really interesting to look at who. Who are the chief examiners for the different exam boards for design and technology and what's their understanding of all of the different material areas for design and technology. And I think that's that's a really key, key aspect. So if you're listening and you're involved in examining for any of the exam boards in england or wales or scotland or northern ire, or beyond we'll go beyond.

Alison Hardy: 17:31

It'd be really interesting to hear from those people who were involved in writing the exams, advising on the specifications, advising on the structure of the coursework, the non-exam assessment. I know my colleague, sarah davis, is involved a little bit in that as well, and so she's a textiles expert. You know who are the textiles experts giving their input and how much sway do they have over that? Because I think, as much as we all say it, we know that teachers teach to the exam. You know, because that's what they're measured on, that's what their school's measured on, that's what the children are measured on, um and so until that assessment process changes and I know in the curriculum review that the labour government have called that the assessment is a key component that they're looking at, but I think we also have to look at who is sat around the table. Writing absolutely.

Dawn Foxall: 18:26

We've just recently, in the last couple of weeks, just been revisiting some of the um, uh exam boards specs, basically to look at the dnt specs and look and see what exactly is in its spec. Yeah, we found anomalies, like you know. There are something like I don't know how many, 16 or something I'm not going to mention. Yeah, the examples that you know there are x amount of um designers, for instance, that um students are meant to look at. Say, choose three or whatever, all of those, just of all the designers. A third of them are fashion textiles, of which all of all of them are dead and um, and some of them are just just really not relevant to what's happening now and you, you see, and then when it comes to things like the exam, they might only ask one or two questions as opposed to you know a third. They're given a third of the of the designers for the whole D&T you know syllabus, whatever. A third of them are of textiles, fashion and textiles. Also, the shops that they're meant to look at. They are nearly all fashion shops. There might be out of, say, I don't know 15, 15 shops. Then you know a half of them will be fashion shops. Most of them are going to be fast fashion.

Dawn Foxall: 19:52

Some, like Gap, don't even exist in this country and you just think surely this should be being revisited every year to update. At least just update and get it into a sort of a much more modern. You know, let's look at designers now. Let's look at the shops that kids are going to now. Let's look at the technology that students, that that could you know students are using now. We're, you know, I don't know who these people are, who, like you say, who are actually um, looking at these specs or devising these, these um exams and these specs because it's, it's so much of it is not relevant now, yeah, I mean, yes, you need some history, yes, you need to put things into perspective, but at least give some more modern, you know, context to to the subject areas, and that's not just fashion, that's not just textiles, that's across the board yeah, I mean I've had again.

Alison Hardy: 20:48

I've had conversations with exam boards around representation of people of color yes, yeah on there as well.

Alison Hardy: 20:56

Um, and and I do know, I do know it's a real challenge for them about meeting the requirements from, as well as weighing it up, as well as the accessibility for different schools across the whole country and such, but yeah, you almost feel like there needs to be a matrix of you know the designers, but also the criteria. Not that each designer meets every criteria. Each shop does, but at least there's a, there's a, it's a cross, yes, isn't it? Um, and so you can kind of feel like the children, because we've got a duty to be teaching children about the whole range, absolutely and in terms and in terms of designers, you know we are supposed to, as a design technology um subject we are supposed to.

Dawn Foxall: 21:44

What our job is is to train young people to become future designers, not not now or, you know before. We're talking about 5, 10, 15 years time. These children are going to be going on and doing degrees or whatever the, however it pans out, uh, joining the industry. Um, with technologies and, and you know, contemporary designers, we want, we want them to understand what's happening now in order to inform them of future design. I mean, yeah, as I said, you, you will have to give them some context and some history and, yeah, you can use people like vivian westwood and, you know, alexander mcqueen, whatever, but uh, and maybe william morris does come somewhere in there, but it's it's. We please mix that with some context for future. What's happening now, who's designing those? And, as I said, that's not just fashion for fashion, textiles, that's for all the material areas.

Alison Hardy: 22:48

Yeah, and is it just actually? Is it false to be naming just designers rather than companies? Absolutely. You know, sometimes because it's the demonstration that it's a whole group of people. I mean, Alexander McQueen was like the head, but actually there's a whole group of other people around involved in the shaping and bringing their knowledge around this and gathering information about what was current, what might be upcoming, what the influences might be.

Dawn Foxall: 23:15

Yes.

Alison Hardy: 23:18

And so on and sourcing materials. So I think we've got to be really careful here, haven't we again about? You know, I can hear people going Alison, you haven't challenged Dawn about her comment about we're training future designers. I'm thinking, yeah, we are, but not in its entirety. So actually, when we just focus on a designer, we're actually being quite limited because there's the we could say, there's the technologist side of it about the development of new materials new textiles and it's the whole thing.

Alison Hardy: 23:45

Yeah, it's the whole. Yeah, it's the whole thing. Yeah, it's it's the whole. And then that's where I think sometimes textiles and equally and I don't like the phrase product design, um, and that's a whole other conversation. Why? I don't like that phrase as part of a gcse or part of dnt um. It's. It's. It's the development, it's the evolution, it's the wider impact. It's the evolution, it's the wider impact.

Dawn Foxall: 24:09

It's not just the designer. Yeah, absolutely.

Alison Hardy: 24:14

It's the people who are looking at what happens to the clothes or the products after they're finished their life cycle. It's all of that. That's the essence of D&T, isn't it? And so there's a falseness in just saying we're just going to look at designers. I mean, in in history, I'm sure they don't just look at kings and queens, you know yeah, yeah, I know we could.

Dawn Foxall: 24:39

We could talk forever about this and in terms of technologies, I mean, you know, and the industry. I'm not just talking about fashion. You know, I live in Leamington Spa where, um, you know, we have Jaguar, land Rover, who, who are at the forefront of designing um, amazing like products. But within those products, there's a lot of textiles, you know, and and, like you say, it's like learning and learning about, you know, about new materials and materials. We don't just mean you know, we mean textiles, textiles, new materials and sports. You know, we've got you know, in terms of sport, we've just been watching the olympics, my god, you know some of those garments. You know some of the, the technology that goes into producing those garments.

Dawn Foxall: 25:28

I mean, I, I've been working with a knitwear man down the road who knits for the nhs and he knits three-dimensional like bandages and stuff that for the medical, you know, for surgery. That's amazing. Yeah, so, so, so, when we went through covid, the beginning of covid, they immediately came up with a knitted mask and I said, oh, I'll have some of those. Just, yes, amazing 3d knitted masks that had like three, three, they were um, three dimensional, as in, they had different layers and whatever. It's incredible, they're amazing. So, yeah, that is technology that you know. That aren't, aren't being taught that now I don't know.

Alison Hardy: 26:12

Yeah yeah, and it's it's. It's coming back to, for me, what is the essence of design and technology. To me, it's about developing their design and technology capability and their critical appreciation of the made world. And so it's as a teacher, teacher's been able to bring in those different things that might be local, like the masks, but being able to unpick them and say you know, how has this been designed, developed? You know, thought about what difference does it make? What process have they used? Um, and then maybe, looking at some that are national, some that are global, thinking about what you were saying about organic cotton, that global chain of production through to sale, to disposal, and it can all be done through textiles. It can, whereas what happens is, if you've got a non-textile specialist involved in leading a department or leading an exam board or writing the materials, they potentially just see fashion. They do.

Dawn Foxall: 27:19

And it's so frustrating. Yeah, they immediately, and I'm sure the head of departments and head teachers mostly would just think when they think textiles, they just think, oh, they're just going to make a ball gown or something.

Alison Hardy: 27:33

I was just going to say the same thing and I thought I died.

Dawn Foxall: 27:36

But yeah, and, to be fair, lots of young girls do want to make a dress, you know, a ball gown, whatever. But that's not what we are here to teach them really. We are here to teach them a much broader aspect of textiles, and this country still has a really thriving industry of which a lot of boys go into, and that's the other big issue about textiles is that boys are not encouraged to go and to do textiles, um, because they think it is just frocks yeah, and hats, hats and cushions and bags I know.

Dawn Foxall: 28:18

So I think I think that is you know, how could we encourage that? I mean, you know, in my head we, we should be using VR and and looking at how you know how a car is made and all the textiles, for instance, a Formula One car, yes, you know looking at medicine as you say, medicine as I just mentioned, medicine, medicine.

Dawn Foxall: 28:39

You know, we've spoken more recently um to um somebody whose husband was a surgeon who said that he did dnd because he needed, you want, and he really like, is so pleased he did because he learned how to sew and so he can. I mean, if you want somebody to sew you up, you want them to know how to thread a needle and stuff, thank you, and I find motor skills, you know absolutely absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, it's their skills that are.

Dawn Foxall: 29:10

You know, it's not just, it's not just making a frock. I mean great, if you can. You know that's that's fantastic, it's, it's a huge challenge. But, um, that's not, not what it's all about, and it's learning design principles at the off with is actual learning the fundamental principles of how to design, and that's, you know, all to do with um, understanding then, what you are designing, who you are designing for, etc. Etc. Um, and, like you said, it's all about the, the disposal, of the development and the disposal of.

Dawn Foxall: 29:45

We're in an age where we have sustainability is key to everything that is being designed and that, at the moment, isn't being taught well enough. I don't think so.

Alison Hardy: 29:57

No no. So what's next then for the Textile Skills Centre? Then when do you see yourselves going?

Dawn Foxall: 30:03

particularly, we've got the curriculum with you, I know, I know it's a really tricky one, because I've been through a couple of sort of like phases of thinking we need our own gcse, thinking actually dnt could work if it was yeah, arranged better you know, could work if there was arranged better.

Dawn Foxall: 30:22

You know, could work if there was a clear pathway for textiles.

Dawn Foxall: 30:28

But I think, looking forward, I think that that could be. But I also think that the idea of a textiles GCSE is still for me anyway, not completely separate, because I think the fun, like we just talked about the fundamentals of design, yes, um, design principles could be taught at the beginning of a D&T, um. You know um pathway. I'm going to call it a pathway, yeah, because we've had just recently just articles by people, from people like, you know, lord Baker or dorking, whatever um, who sort of invented the gcse. I didn't think he invented it, but he certainly. But you know, he, he said that we don't need it. We don't need it because in the 80s, when it was sort of fast, really put together um students were leaving at 16, whereas now they're not, they're leaving at 19, so we don't need that heavy, possibly examination thing there. So maybe it's about looking at pathways through which can lead. So if you did start a dnt gcse or whatever it is dnt pathway, that pathway could then, if you found an interest in textiles, could then lead you through to the to 18 um and on onward right. So I think, looking at that, that's one sort of like idea. Also, the whole sort of like thing about um, I think it's uh, dr helen keys has done some research recently that was um, talked about um, and that was about the benefits of arts and crafts, um for mental well-being. So that's another sort of strand that reinforces the need for things like textiles.

Dawn Foxall: 32:09

And then I think at the moment what we're about to do, and we've just sort of started, is a new bit of research, deep dive into primary. We're very concerned about progression from primary, uh, you know what, what is being taught at primary. So we're doing a deep dive into primary to see, uh, similar to the report that we did last time, which is looking at what is taught or what isn't taught. Yeah, in terms of textiles, what's it taught through art and design or is it through dnt, and how does that pan out? And then the progression then um, up to key stage three, up to key stage four, five, whatever that progression.

Dawn Foxall: 32:50

Looking at that um, our other big project for this year is to create a guideline or a building blocks to what makes what should be taught in terms of textiles, what we would like to see.

Dawn Foxall: 33:02

So this could actually make, be the basis or the guidelines for anybody who wants to teach textiles um, through whatever line they want to do it, um for head head teachers, for heads of departments, to look at and see, okay, if we, if we're going to uh teach, if texas is going to be part of this program, then, uh, what's needed? Yeah, we're going to create a, we're we're approaching um teachers, uh, teacher expert groups and industry experts. What is needed? What do you think we should be teaching, whether it's on a technical pathway or it's on a, you know, a design and technology pathway, whatever it is, what is needed to teach um, what do we think a textile education should look like? Um, so that's our next. You know we're starting that next month um, we're going to do some surveys and uh write reports and create a document uh that will um show what we think should be taught.

Alison Hardy: 34:06

Right, that'd be really interesting. Might have some experts at Nottingham Trent. We can get involved in that as well. That'd be really good, that'd be fantastic, that'd be really good, that'd be really good, right? Well, dawn, that's been a wide ranging conversation, exactly as I expected and hoped, but did take me off into areas that I hadn't thought about. In terms of looking at what you've done, that's a new one. I've not had anybody on before has done opera singing um, or if they have, they've not told me um but no, but that's that's really exciting.

Alison Hardy: 34:35

It's really exciting to have a textiles expert on um, somebody as passionate as yourself. You know Sarah's been on the podcast several times. As you know, sarah davis, my colleague is, is really um driven and around textiles. We and her have great conversations. Because it's not my background, um, I kind of do it as a hobby, but I don't see that as an expert when it gives me a little insight, when I'm aware of my, my limitations around that. But, um, yeah, it's been, it's been really great and I, you know do send me any links lots of things I've made notes about to put in the show notes that people can follow up. I'm really fascinated by the tea and chat model as well and that whole idea of mentoring, I think, is brilliant. So well done to you, dawn, and to your work with Nikki. That's absolutely fantastic and, um, hopefully we'll catch up soon face to face. Yes, that'd be great.

Dawn Foxall: 35:23

Thank you, that was, that was fun.

Alison Hardy: 35:27

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.