Talking D&T

Shaping D&T: Evolution, Not Revolution

• Dr Alison Hardy • Episode 179

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In this episode of the Talking D&T podcast, I describe the recent curriculum and assessment review panel meeting I attended in Cambridgeshire. I explore the ongoing call for evidence and its implications for design and technology education.

One key insight from the meeting was the emphasis on evolution, not revolution, in curriculum changes. This approach considers the financial constraints and the current strain on the teaching workforce. Another significant point was the focus on social justice, highlighting the need to address barriers faced by disadvantaged students and those with special educational needs.

We also discussed the potential impact of making the national curriculum mandatory for all schools, including academies. This could standardise educational aims and content, ensuring a more cohesive approach across the country.

For D&T teachers, this episode offers valuable reflections on how these changes might affect your practice. Consider how you can contribute to the call for evidence by identifying specific pinch points in the curriculum that impact your students. Reflect on what works well in your teaching and what could be improved, and think about how these insights can inform your responses.

Listeners, especially those in the UK, will find this episode particularly relevant, but I encourage our international audience to tune in as well. The themes of equity and effective curriculum design are universal.

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.

Join my online workshop on 6 November at 4pm to prepare your response to the government's curriculum review. Get insights, discuss key issues, and learn how to submit your views effectively. Your expertise matters - make it count before the 22 November deadline!
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Alison Hardy:

You're listening to the Talking D&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 D&T. Last week, I attended a meeting at school in cambridgeshire that they were hosting members of the curriculum and assessment review panel that's happening in england at the moment. Um, so we're in a period of a call for evidence and I went along to find out a little bit more, and I thought this week I'd just share some of the things that I picked up from that meeting. There are other events going on around England at the moment, some online and some face to face, but I found the meeting really informative and it was good to hear different viewpoints as well, so I wanted to share that. So I'm going to make an apology now. If you are not from England, then you might not find some of this episode very helpful or very interesting, because it's really very England centric. Because, as I said, we're in this period of a call for evidence as part of a curriculum and assessment review and I just think it's an opportunity for people interested in teaching, invested in design and technology, to respond to the call for evidence. I wanted to share some of the things that I picked up, but I'm doing that in the context of that.

Alison Hardy:

I'm running two events one this week, so that's the week beginning the 28th of October, which is for colleagues involved in higher education, in design education, and then one on the 6th of October, which is for those involved in teaching education, and then one on the 6th of October which is for those involved in teaching design and technology in schools, that's, in primary and secondary schools, to help them think about how they might make their own response to the curriculum and assessment review. And make me make it clear it's not that one on the 6th of November. It's not very not about a collaborative response. It's about helping people make individual responses. So if you come along to that event and I've got about 40 people signed up to that at the moment, um registration closes on Monday, the 4th of November if you're coming along to that event, you'll you'll hear some of what I'm going to say today and this episode next week. But I wanted to kind of give you some heads up before you come along and for those of you who can't make it, then you'll. You know this is a transparent process, so I didn't want to. It only be for those people who came along to that event next week.

Alison Hardy:

Anyway, I'm rambling because it is late at night while I'm doing this, the dog's already to bed. I'm sure he'll come down in about five minutes, as if to say to me what are you doing? Come on. So let's go for this, right.

Alison Hardy:

So the background to the review. So, professor Becky Francis, who I think is the most articulate speaker I've ever heard not like my late night ramblings now was there and she gave an overview of the review and its context. But that's all publicly available. But I wanted to pull out a couple of things that she said which I thought was really interesting. About the context, I think she's a really balanced person. I think the way she thinks about things she's very measured and very clear. So she talked about the fact that whatever comes out as a recommendation for implementation is about evolution, not revolution. So I think if you're making a response to the curriculum review, you need to be very mindful of that.

Alison Hardy:

They're not looking for wholesale changes for two very good reasons which are very public. One, if they make any changes that are dramatic, it usually involves professional development and other costs, and this week in England. There's going to be a budget and we know there is no money. Okay, now some people might say, oh, you know that's not completely true. There is money, but you know, part of the reason why curriculum initiatives haven't worked in the past is because of lack of investment. So that is one thing that the curriculum review panel are very mindful of is that there is no significant budget available to oversee, support, help with any implementation. Now, that's not to say that there aren't going to be recommendations. The other thing that they are very mindful of is that the workforce, that's, the teaching workforce, those working in schools as well, are overstretched. We know there's a teacher recruitment crisis and a teacher retention crisis, but we also know that there are other issues going on in schools around budgets that are causing cuts to happen to support staff, professional services staff and so on. So, again, it's being mindful of any changes what's in the budget and what can people cope with. That doesn't have a detrimental effect on people's well-being who are working in a schools context. So, having said that, that sounds very negative, but I think those two important things that Becky Francis pulled out are really important to remember. It also turns out which, I think, if you look at the documentation, it's very clear that this plan has been in progress for a lot longer than since the Labour Party came into government in July.

Alison Hardy:

Becky Francis made it clear that she'd been talking to the Labour Party before this and they'd already started to draft the curriculum and assessment review. The curriculum and assessment review and, given her position as the head of the education endowment fund, I think she's got an awful lot of insight into what's happening in education. I also suspect she didn't say this, but I suspect that she's also been working with and my mind has just gone blank Becky Allen and Laura McInerney I think I might have pronounced her surname wrong who lead TeacherTap I'll put a link in the show notes who do surveys every day with teachers. Some of those surveys are paid for. I wonder if she's been looking at some of that data that's been coming from them. I think that's quite insightful data as well. To kind of set some of the context, a big focus of the curriculum and assessment review is social justice, and it's really interesting that that is a very early category in the review that they are looking at. In fact, I'm just quickly looking now after the information about you.

Alison Hardy:

Section one general views on curriculum assessment pathways section two. Section three is about social justice and inclusion and quite often was talked about in the session last week was about the forgotten third those young people where the current education system isn't working for them. System isn't working for them that's leading to exclusion, school refusals, pupils with special educational needs not being engaged or considered in education. There is no moving from a knowledge rich curriculum. That was also made clear. But it was about thinking what are the barriers to their participation in terms of those with socio-economic disadvantages? What about the class ceilings that can't be broken through because of the setup? What about any disproportionate impact on pupils based on protected characteristics such as gender and ethnicity? And what are the barriers for improvement, improving attainment, progress, access or participation for learners with SEND. So that was a real central thing. So, although that's mentioned very clearly in the section three and it was also very much a running theme of the day, so I think that's really important to remember when you're thinking about your reviews.

Alison Hardy:

So what came from that as well was thinking about asking us all to think about where are the pinch points, where's the risk, where's the, where's the, the points where these young people, these children, these learners, these pupils, um, where? Where are the hazards that happen? So is it, for example, in transition between key stages, is it where the curriculum gets narrowed, that young people don't have the choices? So if you think of maker response, where are the pinch points that you see, where are the hazards, where are the risks? So other things that came out just to kind of give the bigger picture at the moment, before I go into a little bit of detail I'm not going to talk for much longer is one of the outcomes will be that the national curriculum will be followed by all schools. Currently in England if you are an academy then you are not required to follow the national curriculum, although most do, because it's designed to lead on into the GCSE and also that's what Ofsted, the inspectorate, go looking for. So it does tend to get followed. But now it will be put that the national curriculum is to be followed by all schools and there's a recognition that that's a national curriculum. It's more a national curriculum that states the aims and the content. It's not necessarily showing how to put that together into a school. So that was one debate that was had. So it's a national curriculum and then that's how that's interpreted in schools.

Alison Hardy:

So let's think about some of the ways that the panel are collecting data. So there's this call for evidence that people are encouraged to respond to by the 22nd of November, but they are also currently doing polls with parents and students and employers to find out. You know they've commissioned some polls to do that and looking to collect that data, and they are also looking at data that is already publicly available to contribute to the review. So there is quite a lot of quantitative data that is being pulled into the review that isn't coming through. This call for evidence but they're looking for call for evidence is to bring in data, qualitative data, from people like me, you, parents, anybody else who's got an interest in education. So I think, again, we need to be aware of that, that this is that other data is being brought in.

Alison Hardy:

But what they were very clear about is when you're responding to the call for evidence that I'm going to get this word wrong, it's late. Specificity see, I still can't say it. Being specific, in other words, is key. So they're not looking for myths and unproven practices, they want solid evidence. Now that solid evidence is not necessarily numbers. Some of you might have numbers, but some of you might be talking about case studies and I've got a couple of people at the event next week and this week bringing some case studies about individuals or groups of students, groups of pupils that they've taught. Okay, so, just being aware of that, thinking about in your responses what's the specific evidence, I'm going to try it again. Specificity, there we go, is key, okay. So, thinking about that and I would think I'm going to talk when we meet next week with those of you who do come along about some ways you might think about presenting that in the call for evidence.

Alison Hardy:

Okay, so, one of the other things that the panel were doing and on the day when we were there last week, they had met with pupils and they had met with teachers before the event where different people had attended, and what they were saying is, from these meetings they're having with teachers, one of the things that they're commenting on is the national curriculum has too much content, and I think some of us would agree with that about design and technology. Some of us might disagree. So they're saying, ok, so if you want to reduce that content, right, what do you want to reduce that content? Right, what do you want to reduce. A lot of teachers are saying, oh, not my subject, I want them to reduce that subject over there. Ok, so we think about that. And then other people are saying, yes, but there isn't this in the curriculum.

Alison Hardy:

Citizenship was talked about in a more concrete way than it is. Careers advice isn't there. So if you put those things in, there's only so many hours in the day and we're talking about an overloaded content. What needs to come out? Ok, so that might be something. If you're thinking about responding to a design and technology one, if you think there's things that need to go in, what needs to come out, okay, so that might be something. If you're thinking about responding to a design and technology one, if you think there's things that need to go in, what needs to come out, okay, and if things go in, what's the unintended consequences of those things going in? What does that say about the nature of the subject and its aims? If that goes in, if it means that something else that you're suggesting comes out? So they've been very mindful about the the unintended consequences, and I think that's why um, colleagues, um, a group of us met in the summer from art and design and design and technology, um, both NSEAD and design and technology association, and next week on the podcast is an interview with Michelle Gregson, the general secretary from NSEAD, and Tony Ryan was on earlier in the year talking about the place of design and technology in the curriculum, what the association are doing to support that.

Alison Hardy:

But there is a concern that, as we've had some greater blurring between what people understand about art, design and D&T, that will these two subjects. One way of saving space in the curriculum is to become one. So I think we need to be really careful of that and listen to next week's episode and you'll hear myself and michelle talking about that and where there is difference and where there is blurring, because there is blurring between all subjects. We can see it between dnt and science, um and art and design, you might say, and music and drama, and between English and literacy and between English literacy and history. So there are blurrings between other subjects as well. But we just need to be mindful of those things when we're talking about moving closer or moving further away from different subjects, or adding things in or taking things out.

Alison Hardy:

And then, finally, the other thing I think that is really important to remember in the review they want to know what's working well. So it's not just about what do we need to change, it's what do we need to keep and maybe what do we need to do more of Okay. So there's quite a bit of questions where they use language like enablers what's working well. I'm trying to have a quick look through about some of the words and I can't see any of the words at the moment. You know, what can we do that does ensure that things work well? What changes can we make that would be beneficial for pupils learning? So it's very you know positive language as well as what needs to change, what isn't working. It's about what is working, you know. So, for example, this is question 31.

Alison Hardy:

To what extent do the current curriculum at primary and secondary and qualification pathways at secondary and 16-19 ensure that pupils and learners are able to develop creative skills and have access to creative subjects? So you know it's kind of to look at the document in the whole, not just look at. Well, I think this needs to change or that needs to come out. We need to do more of this. What works well and where's your evidence for making those claims? Anyway, I hope you found that interesting and helpful. Um, just me talking through. It has helped me clarify it and and put put some things into to my place, into my head and about what my response might be as well.

Alison Hardy:

So hopefully I'll see some of you who listen to the podcast on Wednesday, the 6th of November. I'll put a link in the show notes to how you can sign up for that. Anyway, kip never appeared if you were interested and you've stayed to the end. He's obviously decided it's far too late at 20 past 10 at night to come down and say oi, time for bed, turn the lights out, right? Thanks ever so much for listening. I'll leave it there.

Alison Hardy:

I'm dr allison hardy and you've been listening to the talking dnt 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 dnt community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your dntT 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. 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.

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