Drafting Curricula By Day, Walking Kip By Night

I’ve been quiet on the podcast, and I wanted to be honest about why. The short version is not drama, it’s the reality of design and technology education work right now: drafting curriculum, managing confidentiality, and trying to protect enough headspace to do any of it well.

A big part of my time has been taken up with national curriculum work. I’m involved in drafting the new national curriculum for England, which comes with an NDA, so I’m careful about what I say and how it could be interpreted. Alongside that, I’ve been leading the writing of the technology and design curriculum for Northern Ireland, working with brilliant teachers and learning a lot about how different jurisdictions frame D&T, rigour, accessibility, and purpose.

I also talk through something more personal but very common in education and academia: the tension between public-facing work and institutional recognition. After applying for promotion, I had to reflect on whether an independently produced podcast can count as evidence, and what that means when I also believe D&T needs stronger status and leadership, including professorial voices in design and technology education across the UK.

You’ll also hear updates on the newsletter (Mailchimp limits and a possible move), editing the next edition of Learning to Teach Design and Technology in the Secondary School, and an international curriculum comparison project. If you’re in England, keep an eye out for the national curriculum consultation later in the year, and please get involved when it opens.

If you find this useful, subscribe, share it with your D&T department, and leave a review so more teachers can find the show. What topic would you like me to pick up next?

Transcript

Welcome Back And Context

Alison Hardy 0:06

You're listening to the Talking DT 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 DT. I know it's been a while since I've been on the podcast and done any publishing. In fact, when I looked this morning, the last podcast I put out was on the 18th of November last year. And I have gone very quiet for quite a number of reasons. But this morning the sun is out and I'm feeling like I've got the headspace to record some things. This morning, it might just be a little bit of a waffle as I get my head back into this. So just to give a bit of context, there's a number of reasons why I've not been podcasting. One of them is because I'm involved in drafting the new national curriculum for England, and we have to sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement. Don't read anything majorly into that. So I've kind of been a little bit wary about doing the podcast because I've thought, hmm, people might read into things that I'm talking about or things that I'm saying that might appear in the curriculum. So I've sort of backed off uh recording anything for that reason. So I'm also going to say because I can't talk about it, I can't talk about the process, I can't talk about where we're at at the moment. Again, don't read anything into the fact that I've popped up today to do a podcast. I've also been involved in leading on the writing of the technology and design national curriculum for Northern Ireland. So I've been kind of pretty busy, been to Belfast a couple of times, working with a fabulous group of teachers. Um, and that's been really exciting to get to know uh some new people, which those of you listen to the podcast know that I like to do. And also, as I said, the England one, I've been working with Matt McLean and Tony Ryan on that. The three of us are drafting that curriculum, and that's a fab group of people as well to be working with. So sometimes it's actually the fact that it gets to eight o'clock in the evening and I'm absolutely shattered after I've cooked tea, walked the dog, had a little bit of downtime. I actually haven't got the energy to be podcasting and getting my head in this space. So that's another reason why I've not been podcasting. Another very pragmatic reason is those of you who listen will know that I applied to be a professor last year, and when you apply, you have to produce evidence about a number of different categories. I won't bore you with all the different categories, but you have to kind of show uh various different things. It's kind of quite difficult because you're having to put yourself forward. I think my mum would say you don't have a problem with that, Alison, but anyway, mums are allowed to say that sort of thing, and I use the podcast uh as quite a lot of evidence about things that I did. Um, but part of the issue is the conflict there is that I do the podcast on my own time and my own space, and I pay for everything, and I'm really beautifully supported by some subscribers who've stuck with me whilst I've not podcasted. So, just also a shout out to them and say thank you very much. I really do appreciate the fact that you give me a little bit of money every month to subscribe, and you've not had anything for a while, so that's really gives me some encouragement as well. Or it might be that you just don't look at your direct debits, I don't know. Um so when I applied, I didn't get it last year for a number of different reasons. Um, but one of the things that came out in the feedback was that because the podcast isn't branded Nottingham Trent, should I really be putting it down as evidence? Um, can I really use it? And so that kind of left me with a bit of an internal conflict because I want to get promotion. Um, I want to become a professor, I'm not gonna hide the fact that I'm ambitious about it. I've got altruistic reasons as well. I think uh the subject would benefit from a professor. We don't actually have any um professors in the field of design and technology education in England or in the whole of the UK at the moment. I'm I'm happy to be called out on that. Um, and I think it helps with the status of the subject. I know there are other colleagues who are also going for this as well, so that that's fabulous. It adds to the the strength of the subject, um, but also I kind of think I work really hard, I do a lot of things to raise a profile subject, I do research, blah blah blah, I write books, and I I want to get the recognition. You know, we all like to get recognition for our work. Um, so I've had to kind of think where do I invest my time? Because I don't have a huge amount of time at the moment. Um, those of you who know me personally will know that my personal circumstances have changed quite dramatically in the last almost three years, um, which has been emotionally and personally quite difficult, um, but also means that I haven't necessarily had the headspace, um, and I've had to be kind of a little bit more selective about where I give my time. I've also had some other personal complications. I'm now waiting for two operations. Um, I'm okay, I'm just kind of repercussions of going trampolining are continuing to play out in my life. Um, and I now have a garden that I'm managing on my own. And if you listen to the podcast regularly or you've been in recent meetings with me, you'll know I also have a dog called Kip who wants to be part of my life and likes to take part in meetings. So, you know, as we all do, we have to kind of make a balance. So I'm not trying to say this to make an apology or to ask for any sympathy. I've got a great circle of family and friends who are there as my support network. It's more to be saying, you know, we all have to make choices, and I've had to make some choices about how do I prioritize things that are good for me, give me energy, but also give me headspace and where I'm having to use my brain a lot, and also where I need the physical energy to be looking after myself while I'm uh waiting for an operation on my Achilles. Um, so yeah, so it's just to kind of give that context, and it also prompted me to think about it because I was reading an article on the BBC News website today about um how girls see themselves and how they still tend to see themselves through the lens of boys. And I suppose as I've got older I have the privilege of not having to do that, um or maybe I'm just more resilient and and kind of think, well, this is who I am, take me as I am. And I thought sometimes I share things because I think other people need to hear the realities of how people get to do different things. Anyway, there you go. So moving on, um, and also if you sign up for the newsletter, that's another reason why you've not been getting the monthly, although I don't think it's ever really been very monthly newsletter. The other difficulty is I now have so many of you have signed up for the newsletter that I use um Mailchimp and I use a free account, and they've set a limit, and I've over that limit, so I've been trying to work out what am I going to do, and I think I'm going to look at moving to Substack, not to do that as a paid thing, um, but to do it as a phrase, so I've kind of got to get my head around that um as well. So alongside uh drafting and leading on uh the writing of two national curricula, I've also been editing with Sarah Davis, the fifth edition, I think it's the fifth edition, yeah, of the Learning to Teach Design and Technology in the secondary school. And we're just at the proof proofing section, we're just going through all the edits that have come back from the copy editor and doing that. So that's been a really uh big project, as you can imagine. Um, we've dramatically restructured the book. Well, I think it's dramatic, you might not when it comes out. We're hoping it's going to come out in July of this year, and I'll be doing some of my usual stuff to publicise it because I like it to be all about me sometimes, but also just to share really the great new chapters we've got. I've got some fantastic new authors that I've brought in who I know have got expertise in different areas. That's been really, really exciting, but a lot of work. Um, and then having said that I'm trying to manage my workload and have a balance of my time, I'm also thinking now it's about the time to start thinking about the next edition of the Debates in Design and Technology book because you know things are changing and evolving in the subject, so I think it's time to bring some new debates uh to the table. So, yes, the Learn to Teach book, and then also I'm leading on an international uh design and technology education project. Of course I am, why wouldn't I be? Um, and that has involved bringing together colleagues from about 18 different jurisdictions. I'm calling them jurisdictions rather than countries because some of them are territories and jurisdictions. For example, um, you know, I've learned, for example, that Northern Ireland, some colleagues in Northern Ireland don't refer to it as a country, they refer to it as a jurisdiction. Um, so it's kind of using that catchal phrase. I am waffling, aren't I, this morning? Um, so we're doing that and we're comparing the content and the rigour of the content and the ideology of the curriculum and whether it's accessible and so on and so forth. So I think that's really exciting. We're taking that as a slow project, so we're currently um doing the analysis at the moment, um, and I will be sort of doing a little bit of a call out to see if I've got any teachers, or I might just contact a couple that I know to say would they like to be involved in that project and doing some of that analysis uh alongside me. And I think it should be a relatively quick and straightforward process, but that's something else that I'm doing. I think those are kind of the major projects. Yeah, also doing the evaluation of the uh Inspired by Industry uh projects that the Design and Technology Association have. I began working with Sarah. I like working with Sarah because she's a good finisher. I'm a good person that comes up with lots of ideas, and Sarah's a good one at making me go, Alison, don't have capacity, let's just focus on this. So, a bit of a ramble, but hopefully that kind of gives you a picture about where things are, why I can and can't talk about certain things. Please don't read anything into what I'm talking about that has anything to do with what's going into national curriculum, but just to give an insight as to how things work as an academic and how we have to prioritize and how we have to make sure we have time to live and have space amongst what we do. So I'm really loving what I'm doing and really loving the group of people that I'm working with on all these different projects as well. And I will be back shortly once I get my head into thinking what are the topics I'm going to talk about on the podcast. So, as ever, thanks for listening, thanks for your patience. Do let me know what you think. Um, and look out for if you're in England later in the year, don't know when, but there will be a consultation on the whole of the national curriculum. So please do get involved, but I will be talking on the podcast when that is going live and when I'm able to to get you all involved in giving feedback. Anyway, thanks again for listening. I'm Dr. Alison Hardy, and you've been listening to the Talking DT 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 DT community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your DT 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, dralisonhardy.com. 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.