Curriculum Review Call to Action: Your Voice in Shaping D&T's Future

In this episode of Talking D&T, I break down the curriculum and assessment review for England. As a researcher in design and technology education, I highlight key sections relevant to D&T teachers and stakeholders.

I walk you through the review's nine sections, focusing on areas like social justice, curriculum content, and assessment. You'll learn how to approach your response and understand the importance of providing specific examples.

We explore D&T's place in the curriculum and discuss maintaining a broad, balanced offering in schools. I share thoughts on addressing the decline in D&T uptake and the need for creative subjects.

This episode is useful for D&T teachers in England, but international listeners will find value in understanding curriculum reviews. I provide advice on crafting your response and invite you to a 6th November online event.

How might your perspective shape D&T education? Let's ensure our subject's vital role is recognised!

Mentioned in the show
1. Curriculum and assessment review call for evidence document
2. EPI report commissioned by the Design and Technology Association
3. "Debates in Design and Technology Education" book
4. Previous podcast episode on empathy in design and technology
5. Paper by Alison Hardy on the impact of Progress 8 on children's access to design and technology post-14
6. Online event on 6th November at 4:00 PM GMT to discuss the curriculum review response

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.

Chapters

• 0:06 Curriculum and Assessment Review in England
• 6:08 Design and Technology Education Review
• 16:31 Design and Technology Education Review
• 28:28 Professional Development in Design Education

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:06

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. I'm going to start out with a bit of a an apology, in a way that this week's episode is really focused at those in England, because I'm going to focus this week on the curriculum and assessment review call for evidence that's come out. Now. That's not to say, don't listen if you're not based in England, but that's where I'm really targeting this one. Generally, I try to make them a bit broader, but that is really what the focus of this is this week. So let's just set the context.

Alison Hardy: 0:53

Back in July, the new government, the new Labour government, announced a curriculum and assessment review for year one, so four or five year olds through to year um to age 19. Okay, so they're not looking at early years, I'm not looking at apprenticeships and t levels. They're looking at sort of formal schooling, and it is formal schooling, it's not informal schooling, um in those areas. So I've been involved in a number of groups in the last year. I think we kind of all saw this was coming, so it wasn't a surprise um, but they announced for a call for evidence. I think we thought there might be a consultation, but actually it's been a call for evidence and that came out at the end of September. Now you could say so why are you taking so long to talk about it? Because it's now.

Alison Hardy: 1:40

I'm recording this on the 9th of October. Well, a whole series of reasons you know. Life and work get in the way, but also, if you feel like me, the documents for the call for evidence are actually quite daunting. So that's why I'm doing this episode is to talk through it and to explain to the things that I'm organising to help people think about how they might respond to the curriculum review. So this is meant to be a practical episode and so that's why it's taken me so long to get to the point. So I've had to kind of get some things in place and some events and dates in the diary as well set up. So listen on and hopefully those of you who are in England will be encouraged to write to respond to the call for evidence as a result of this and maybe come along to at least one of the events that I'm organizing to support people in responding to the call for evidence. And if you're not in England, maybe still listen on, because you never know this might happen where you are and you might want to be ahead of the game. So if you're driving which I think quite a lot of people do when they're listening to this, or maybe even just falling asleep at the end of a long day, I don't know you might just want to have a listen through and then, when you've got space, look at the show notes and download the link or the document, the PDF.

Alison Hardy: 2:56

That is the call for evidence. Now, really, the review panel wants the responses to be made online. The PDF is there to help you gather your thoughts. So it's a 35 page document, 34 page document that includes a front page and a back page. So it's 32. We're going to start splitting here.

Alison Hardy: 3:14

So it is quite. It's quite a long document. It's got a lot of sections in it which I think can be quite daunting. So I wanted to go through this in a bit of a step by step. So it explains why it matters.

Alison Hardy: 3:30

It's saying that it's looking around evidence that is important and that reflects what people are experiencing and seeing and understand that's going on in schools and colleges in England. They recognise the changes. They're not looking to revolutionise, they're looking for an evolution, because I think they're very conscious of teacher workload. We've got a real issue in England around teacher workload and therefore retention and attrition and actually recruitment to the workforce, and that's not just in design and technology. So I think there's a concern that if there's too much of a change and is that really going to be manageable to implement, particularly as the government keeps going on about how little money there is and so there probably won't be very much around for professional development. Okay, so what they're hoping to identify is the most significant and pressing issues facing curriculum and assessment. So if you're looking to do a response, that's what you need to be aware of. From your perspective, what do you see as the most significant and pressing issues facing curriculum and assessment? And I expect that, if you're listening, you're going to come at this from a design and technology perspective. I'm sure, if you're listening, you're going to come at this from a design and technology perspective. I'm sure, if you write a response, you can do that from a number of different spaces, places and different views, but that's maybe where I'm, that's where I'm coming from this today. Okay, um, so we know that parts of the system they say require improvements. It's an opportunity to remove limits and ceilings to high and rising standards for all, alleviate some of the pressure and constraints on learners and educators, reduce the assessment burden where feasible and appropriate, while continuing to recognise the socially progressive benefits of public exams, support, professional expertise and so on and so forth.

Alison Hardy: 5:17

Now I've had a look at the review panel members. I think they're a really, really interesting group of people, quite diverse, and quite a few from Okanational, which I think is interesting as well. There's a couple quite diverse and it's quite quite a few from international, which I think is is interesting, as well as a couple of academics. It's led by Professor Becky Francis, who I personally, professionally, have a huge amount of respect for and I love the way she thinks and I've read quite a lot of her papers, heard her speak and I just think she's awesome. So that's me putting somebody on a pedestal. You can judge for yourself about Becky Francis and you know it's quite public who she is. She's currently leading the Education Endowment Foundation, so, and she's very much about inclusion and diversity around social inclusion and about some of the barriers that there are for young people accessing education. So that that's my understanding of those.

Alison Hardy: 6:08

So there's nine sections in the call for evidence, okay, so we're going to go through those in a moment. I'm going to kind of pick out the ones that I think are particularly relevant for design and technology. Okay, so the first section is about you. All right, so you can do it individually, behalf of an organisation or whatever. So you might want to do this as a department, as an individual. You might want to join with other organisations.

Alison Hardy: 6:35

I've been asked to join with a couple of different organisations to make a response and I'm looking at several different ways that I might respond to this, of several different ways that I might respond to this, and you've got to say what type of organisation you're responding on behalf of, and so on and so forth. If you are responding on behalf of your organisation at school, for example, you might just want to check with your school senior leaders that they are OK to say that it's OK to say that you are responding on behalf of your organisation. I'm saying that because at Nottingham Trent, where I work, we are looking at a collective response from higher education around design education and ours has to be signed off by one of our pro-vice chancellors. Okay, because it's going to have the Nottingham Trent name on it and say that that's a particular perspective. So we need to be aware of that and so, moving on, there's section two is about some general views on curriculum assessment and qualifications and um. So you need to think about how you might respond to that. It's sort of remember this document is also written for people who aren't involved in education or aren't so immersed as you might be. So think about the fact this is also meant for parents. You might think why they're telling me all this about key stages, what GCSEs are, okay, um. So I think you know you kind of need to look at this and be aware of that. So I think in this section I would be giving some overviews. It talks about what aspects of the current curriculum assessment system and pathways are working well to support and recognize educational progress for children and young people. So you can give some general headlines, I think, there and they're looking for what's working well and then they ask for targeted improvements. So again, it's been really clear here about what are the changes that you think could be made. Now you might want to, for example, comment on some of the assessment issues you might feel there are around design and technology at GCSE and day level.

Alison Hardy: 8:27

There is another section that's specifically about assessment. So this might be where you kind of just put some headline information. My suggestion might be that, actually, you would address the areas of sections three to nine I don't necessarily think that they all need addressing if you're focusing from design and technology but three to nine, and then't necessarily think that they all need addressing if you're focusing from design and technology but three to nine, and then go back and do section two, almost like as an overview or an introduction to what you're what you're wanting to focus on. Okay, so that's section two general views on curriculum, assessment and qualification pathways. Right, and so then the next section is social justice and inclusion, and in some of the groups that I'm working with, this is an area that we've decided we want to focus on.

Alison Hardy: 9:13

This is about pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, pupils that are vulnerable and where there might be specific gaps based on other characteristics. Now you might want to refer to, for example, here the EPI report that the Design and Technology Association commissioned. That came out, I think, in 22, 22, I can't quite remember actually where they looked at some characteristics around ethnicity and gender. You might want to draw on that and say whether that reflects who you are and where you are. Or you might be working in a school that is for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and you might want to very definitely come at that from that perspective.

Alison Hardy: 9:54

They also go on to talk about socioeconomically disadvantaged learners, those from more affluence. So again, you might want to think about the nature of your school, the demographic of the pupils that you work with and, if you're a teacher, whether you feel that the GCSE, for example, is truly accessible, whether you know I hear quite a lot from teachers about the theoretical content and Whether you think there's too much, too little, the 50-50 of the non-examined assessment and the examined assessment, whether that works. Does that exclude young people? Is the way the curriculum is set up for the GCSEs. Does that mean if you haven't got the expertise it's not appropriate? But other qualifications don't carry the same status by employers. So you know there are all sorts of tensions around that. Okay, so they talk about socio-economic disadvantage and then they talk about whether you think any of these curriculum, assessment and qualification pathways disproportionately impact gender and ethnicity.

Alison Hardy: 11:08

I might, for example, pick up on there, building on some of the work with chapter we wrote about in the debates book about how do we do race in D&T. That I think about the whiteness of the curriculum. Some of the history of the design and technology not the subject itself, but design, designers, technologists and so on tend to be more evidenced by designers who are white than are of colour, and so on, and then for special educational needs. So I think that is a for me, might not be for you. I think that's a really important part of this. To respond to Section four ensuring an excellent foundation in maths and English, now we're really upfront and say this is not an area that I'm going to focus on. Ok, I'm coming at this in this podcast at the moment around design and technology, and so for me, this isn't an area I don't have. I don't have the expertise in this. Ok, so I'm moving on from section four.

Alison Hardy: 12:03

So section five, curriculum and qualification content. This is talking about the national curriculum, about the programmes of study it's starting to pick up about the specifications, sort of Key Stage 4, post 16 and so on. Ok, and so here this is asking you to think about whether the qualifications and curriculum are cutting edge and fit for purpose, appropriately balancing ambition, excellence, relevance and flexibility. Crack it. There's an awful lot going on here. Does the content and qualifications reflect the issues and diversities of our society? I'm going to have a hint of that in what I might put in my answers to section three, into that in what I might put in my answers to section three, and they're going to look at a wide range of protected characteristics and whether they're sort of supported and recognised in the curriculum and qualifications as well as social class. So again, it's a whole load of things here to explore, as I think can be quite bamboozling really.

Alison Hardy: 13:06

So if we go down to some of the details, this is question 22. If you're looking at this on page 20, are there particular curriculum or qualification subjects where there is a too much content, not enough content or content is missing, the content is out of date, unhelpfully sequenced or needs greater flexibility? Now I think I could go to town on that one, but it's thinking about the evidence, so you might need to be really specific in here. You know giving a general answer. Remember that the curriculum review panel, they're not design and technology experts. They're taking feedback, evidence from huge amounts of sectors. You know different subjects, different groups and so on. So think about that. And it says please provide detail on specific key stages where appropriate.

Alison Hardy: 13:58

So again, this is for primary and secondary, for people to respond to. What changes can be made? Question 23 asks to ensure that the curriculum is more diverse and representative of society. 25, no, that's 23, 24. Does it support students to positively engage with and be knowledgeable about and respect others? I think design and technology does, in the way that we talk about empathy. There's a podcast episode on that as well that you might want to have a listen to. And then, um, does it help people? Does a primary curriculum support pupils to have the skills and knowledge they need for life and further study, and does a secondary curriculum do this likewise? And the post 16, okay, so there's quite a lot there. This is focusing on the curriculum and on the curriculum content.

Alison Hardy: 14:50

And then section six. I think it's really interesting this that they've um separated this out. They've got a particular heading, a broad and balanced curriculum, and they do talk about in here about that um, that there have been uh, knock-on impacts due to government policy that have had some impact on children's take-up on different subjects. They talk about the entitlement to study design and technology and they're interested in whether design and technology, along with other subjects that they're entitled to, whether continued study of these subjects happens. So I think if you're a design and technology teacher in secondary school and you've seen a narrowing of what's offered post 14, or you're a parent and a D&T teacher, so you've got an insight into a number of different schools and you're now seeing D&T offered at fewer centers, fewer schools post 14, then whilst it's an entitlement, it's not actually offered or whether the way it's been organized on the school timetable it restricts access to it. So, yes, they can say what we offer it, but actually the reality is, through a whole load of situations and you might want to give the specific details in your responses in this call for evidence whole reasons why it's not actually accessible to all children, and I wrote a paper about this a few years ago about Progress 8 and the impact potentially Progress 8 might have on children's access to design and technology post 14.

Alison Hardy: 16:31

Access to design and technology post 14 okay, so I think, um, to what extent does the current primary or secondary there's question 28, 29, one on primary, one on secondary curriculum and qualifications pathway support pupils to study a broad and balanced curriculum. Should anything change to better support this? And that's where you can give some really good examples I would be going. A part of my answer would be this is what's happening. This is how, over three years, four years uh, the offer has declined in my school or in my group of schools. This has been caused by and there's lots of factors. What could be done to change this? And then you might want to make some, make some suggestions, and I think that's where it's going to be really powerful that you can make some practical suggestions there. Okay, and to what extent of the current curriculum at primary and secondary, ensure that pupils and learners are able to develop creative skills and have access to creative subjects. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I'm doing a little dance here on this one. I think that's a really, really exciting question and they also have a hyperlink on there about curriculum subject trends over time and you can talk about that in your school and and how it plays out in your school as well. I think that's really powerful. But this should anything change to better support this? What do you need? What needs to, needs to happen, and we need to be mindful all the time that there isn't a lot of money around. Okay, so what? What might be the solution? So if we have a radical change, if you're proposing a radical change to a qualification or the content, where's the professional development? And we know that if teachers are stressed, um, or they don't feel fully engaged in the curriculum, then that's when teachers become disaffected and leave the profession, or they change subject, um, go part-time, or you know it's really hard to if you're not getting that support. So be mindful of that as well, I think, when you're making responses.

Alison Hardy: 18:25

Section four section seven, sorry assessment and accountability. Of course there's loads in this. This is why I'm doing this podcast, this is why I want to kind of give you this time of talking it through. Section seven assessment and accountability. The review wants to ensure that the assessment system captures the strengths of every young person, the breadth of the curriculum, and has the right balance of assessment methods while maintaining the important role of examinations. So exams are not going to go away, okay, so let's just be aware of that.

Alison Hardy: 18:57

Okay, so the questions here around statutory assessment at key stage one and key stage two, so that that's a whole primary section about statutory assessments. So again, I'm not sure there's a space there around design and technology. So primary teachers listening you might want to think about actually, you might put something in that section too about your general views on assessment at primary if you've got something you want to say about design and technology. In secondary they're primarily talking about GCSEs. Is the volume of assessment required right? Any changes that could be made that have a negative impact? What can we do to ensure the assessment requirements support developments and that young people's well-being is effectively considered? Ok, and of any particular GCSE subjects this is question 41, any particular GCSE subjects where changes could be made to the qualification content and or assessment that would be beneficial for pupils learning? Ok, there's loads there that you could really get involved in and are there ways in which we could support improvement in pupil progress and outcomes at key stage three?

Alison Hardy: 20:10

Okay, so there's loads there and there's a whole subsection here about accountability, and so you might want to respond on this and talk about league tables, sat scores, and how does that influence decisions in schools and colleges about what's offered, why it's offered? Does it actually support and recognise progress? You might want to hear critique the EBAC and Progress 8. And progress eight? And should any changes be made to the accountability system to better support progress and incentivise inclusion for young people with SEND or from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. So there's masses to go on. There's no reason here why you need to respond to all of these questions. That's why I'm just picking out some that I think might really resonate with you as a teacher. And then section eight is about quals, post-16. So if you're involved in post-16 education and about A-levels again similar questions that have been asked around secondary here and then also about post-16 level one and level two qualifications not my area of specialism.

Alison Hardy: 21:21

And then, finally, let's move on to section nine, which is the last section, other issues on which we would welcome views. So they've got three excuse me subsections here transitions, technology and further views. So transitions how can curriculum assessments and wraparound support better enabled transitions I might go and have a chat to Cathy Growney about this. She's wrote a chapter in the debates book about transition and something we could put in there. Technology how can technology be used to improve how we deliver the curriculum assessment and quals in Englandland? I'm hoping that trudy barrow has got some ideas around ai that could be put in there as well and I'm sure that might be a topic that you might want to put in there, about the content in that section.

Alison Hardy: 22:13

On the content, which is section five, about ai and about modernizing the curriculum, and then further views, a good, lovely catch-all, question number 54. Do you have any further views on anything else associated with the review, not covering the questions throughout this call for evidence? So my view is, if you're a teacher and you've managed to stick with me, well done. 22 minutes we've been talking about this. So far, 54 questions. I don't think you've got capacity. I haven't got capacity at all time to respond to this in in every single question, and so I'm gonna, I'll pick out and I'll put it in the show notes, the actual questions I think maybe people might find useful, and I'll get AI to do me a description and pull out some of the questions as well. But if you, if you want to kind of sort of pick this up in a bit more detail, I'm actually organizing, I'm going to put it in the show notes.

Alison Hardy: 23:13

You can sign up, you can register an online event on the 6th of November. I'm saying that with great confidence. I've got loads going on around this. Let me just check. I've got that date 6th of November. Yes, at 4 o'clock that will still be just about. No, that's GMT, because it's the 4th of November. So clocks will have gone back 4 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon, 6th of November, an online meeting.

Alison Hardy: 23:44

Now, this is not me telling you what you should be putting in the review. Okay, what I'm here about today and in that meeting is empowering people in design and technology to make their own responses. You might collaborate with, with other people you might not Completely up to you, I ain't going to coordinate that. I'm about empowering you to respond. I think that is really, really important. So what's this meeting about? So Diana Chuliton, the former lead inspector for D&T, contacted me and said Alison, what are we doing? Can we get people together? So this is what I'm doing. I always do as I'm told. It's highly unlikely and we're going to do this event for an hour and a half and we're going to start and I'll be contacting some of you who are listening with people doing a two, three minute presentation. If you push your luck, I might give you four On a particular aspect of the review, just giving a perspective to stimulate some thinking, all right, and then we're going to go into breakout rooms and we're going to go into breakout rooms that relate to the different sections.

Alison Hardy: 24:51

So we're going to have a breakout room for section three, social justice and inclusion. Section five, curriculum and qualification content. Section six, a broad and balanced curriculum. Section seven, assessment and accountability. And section eight, depending on take-up on qualification, pathways 16 to 19. Okay, and that's five different breakout rooms and I'm going to ask people if they will chair those rooms to kind of go through some of the questions for about 45 minutes that people can chip in Now, subject to everybody's approval. What I'd really like to do is record those breakout rooms, not for research purposes as a whole of the ethical thing, but actually so that we can use the transcripts and we can do a summary and share that with the people who attended. So they've kind of got some points to think about that might help with writing their responses.

Alison Hardy: 25:47

I'm not asking people to do anything. I'm asking if you want to come along. We're going to provide some support at the end then on how you might respond, how you might tackle it and the dates that are absolutely key. The 22nd of November is the cut-off date, what we think we might be able to do after that and also what's happening in between this meeting on the 6th of November and the 22nd as well. So that's the plan for the event.

Alison Hardy: 26:15

Like I said, this is not going to be Alison Hardy telling us what we should write. This is Alison Hardy supporting you in thinking about how you might respond with your perspective and your evidence and your ideas, what needs to be changed. Okay, I'm not going to sign anybody's, I'm not going to check anybody's. Um, I might push up you, help you with the writing, but, um, you know, that's that's. That's the plan for this.

Alison Hardy: 26:40

So Diana's going to do a little bit at the beginning and I said I'm going to ask some other people probably some of you who are listening to do something to get some stimulation going. Then the breakout rooms and then some practical guidance on responding. I think it's really important that you do respond, really, really important I'm not saying this is a once in a generation, but this is really unusual that a review is asking for call for evidence, and I think it's really exciting, even if you only respond to two questions, that is worth doing. So come along, give an hour and a half. You've given half an hour already listening to this. Maybe an hour if you listen to it twice with the notes in front of you, and then come along and then think about whether you might want to write a review. You could use some of the notes that we generate. As long as everybody agrees that we can record and we can share those, we'll do that, and all for enabling people to respond and talk about the subject. So there you go. That's kind of quite a lot of ground.

Alison Hardy: 27:38

I've just covered there and you can see now why I've put off doing this week's podcast. I'm recording this on a Wednesday. It didn't get one out yesterday, so I'm going to try and get this out tomorrow morning. Get this edited That'll be Thursday, the 10th of October. Get this out so we can get going, and there'll be lots and lots of links in the show notes place of you to sign up, um, information, guidance, whatever. I'm here to help. Okay, I will be making a response.

Alison Hardy: 28:06

I'm also coordinating a group from higher education, from colleagues who teach on design education courses. So we're looking at a higher education response. That's not a teacher education response. That's from design courses. It's a separate thing. I've also been invited to another group that involves the design technology association and NSEAD the subject association for art and design to contribute to that one.

Alison Hardy: 28:28

I may well do one with Diana. I may well do one on my own, okay, um, this is about you. This is about you responding from your professional expertise. Thanks for listening. I'm Dr Alison Hardy and you've been listening to the Talking D&T podcast expertise. Thanks for listening community in developing their practice. So please do share the podcast with your dnt 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, drallisonhardycom. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron. Links toipe, patreon and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.