Curriculum Programme

D&T issues

Naught for your comfort?
Author: David Barlex

www.naaidt.org.uk and www.dtonline.org

HMI Peter Toft lists key questions and future challenges at the Adviser’s Annual Conference

On Thursday afternoon, 22 April at the Holiday Inn in Telford the National Association of Advisers & Inspectors in Design and Technology (NAAIDAT) gathered for their three-day annual conference. Peter Toft delivered the opening keynote. In many ways most of the content was unremarkable as he carefully described the current influences on design & technology and reviewed recent inspection evidence. But at the end of his presentation he posed these challenging questions.

On the primary curriculum

• How realistic is it to expect average class teachers, working in average conditions, to teach 9+ subjects effectively? Should we be promoting an element of semi-specialisation at KS2?

• What are the observed implications for design & technology of the national strategies?

• Could better planning create more synergy and economy of scale by combining elements of foundation subjects (either with each other or with core subjects) to create worthwhile learning experiences? If so, how would the problems of muddle and superficiality experienced in the past with ‘topic based activities’ be avoided?

On the secondary curriculum

• As the carousel system is responsible for a large number of the ills facing the subject at KS3 should we engage in a major rethink of the way we organise design & technology teaching at KS3?

• If schools do not teach KS3 pupils 5 or 6 modern foreign languages in a carousel, why should they teach 5 or 6 elements of design & technology at this level?

• Could we improve coherence, progression and standards by e.g. a) reducing the number of these elements, or b) giving them each a much more obvious common core of design & technology characteristics and allowing schools and/or pupils to specialise at or near the beginning of KS3 as they do in modern foreign languages?

On pupils’ attainment

• Have we unwittingly developed design & technology as a “girls’ subject”? If so, what do we do about it? Which of its characteristics are most appealing to boys and to girls?

• Have we created a subject for the upper ability and social echelons? If so, how does this square with the policy to promote social inclusion? What aspects of design & technology engage disaffected teenagers, or less able pupils, most?

Implications for design & technology of technological progress

• How should the subject adapt to the seeming imperative of continuous technological progress?

• Should we seek to define principles for this adaptation e.g. progress from the simple to the complex and/or progression from concrete to abstract?

• If we did this, would we strike a relationship between progressing from the simple/concrete to the complex/abstract and progressing from established to new technologies? Do the established technologies form a “simple” basis from which to learn new technologies?

• What do we need to do to enable teachers to distinguish between pupils’ attainment in ICT-based design & technology, which reflects their real capability and that which merely reflects the hardware and software capability?

Implications for design & technology of its links to industrial practice

• How far should generalist design & technology education be linked to manufacturing industry?

• What should design & technology become if most low level manufacturing goes to other countries?

• What should design & technology become if these countries develop rapidly to become manufacturing innovators, as well as providers of cheap labour, competing with, and taking over, our technologically advanced industries? What if the UK becomes an entirely service-based economy?

• Is there more to be gained from design & technology, by children, than an insight into industrial manufacturing?

If you have any views on Peter’s questions then do use the comment button.

Comment

Your Comments

Wed, 5 May 2004 : Paul Shallcross

NAAIDT will address these issues during the next year. It is important to help schools seek solutions as well as raise questions.