I heard on the Today programme this morning about the initiative by the V&A Museum in London to boost the status of design and technology as a subject in our schools. Looking back over the posts on this blog, it seems several years now since the subject generated a post on its own. Maybe this is because of the overwhelming narrative that the only subjects of worth are those in the EBacc, so beloved of Ministers.
This blog has never accepted the view that the EBAcc represented a broad and balanced curriculum, and has certainly made the point that subjects more related to real life and the working world of many millions of citizens deserves more appreciation in our schools. Can our schools currently help produce the next generation of designers to power future companies that will rise to the heights of Apple?
The recent commemorations of D-Day reminded me both of the part played by Hobart’s funnies in the landings and of the importance of the Bailey bridge, an early example of which can still be found on Port Meadow, just down the road from where I live in Oxford. Both are examples of good design fitting a purpose.
However, there will be a problem teaching design and technology as a subject to everyone in our schools unless there is a real push on recruitment into teacher training.
Design and Technology currently languishes as the subject at the foot of the recruitment table, with the worst record on the percentage of required places on ITT courses being filled. The V&A could help to inspire a scholarship scheme such as for physics, chemistry and some other subjects, as part of the conference it is hosting today. If design and technology is so important, then so are those that teach it.
There is a lot of information around, not least on TeachVac, about where the schools trying to recruit design and technology teachers are located, but it requires more forensic analysis of the School Workforce Census to discover those schools where the subject has either been eliminated from the curriculum or severely curtailed. I also suspect that in some cases art and design and technology have become merged into a single department or faculty with consequent effects on both curriculum areas.
I am sure that toy manufacturers can also play a part in awakening more interest in the subject by creating making toys rather than playing screen-based games. If in order to progress and win a game you needed to demonstrate making skills that might prove an incentive for the learning how to make and mend rather than use and throw that so characterises many areas in our consumer society from fashion to food. If we make our meals, are we less likely to waste the food?
Design and technology needs a series of champions to raise the profile of the subject in our schools. I hope that the conference as the V&A, a wonderful repository and showcase for the applied arts, design and technology will be the start of the revival in the fortunes for the subject in our schools.
John Howson 
I had never heard of Hobart’s ‘funnies’.
Leaving aside my historical ignorance, you’re right about the low status of D&T. This is influenced, as you say, by the focus on academic EBacc subjects and Progress 8 which only allows one ‘extra’ subject in the P8 bucket.
But it’s also influenced by an unfortunate national tendency to see practical subjects as something for the lower sets. This was true even in the early sixties when girls deemed academic in my school were steered away from art and needlework.
It’s no longer the case that boys do woodwork/metalwork and girls do sewing and cooking. But these subjects are being shut out as a combination of league table pressures, expense and the perception, described above, that subjects with a practical element are somehow easier.
Janet,
Hobart was an engineer and tank officer that designed the range of vehicles based on tank bodies that cleared mines – flails; bridged gaps and small streams and undertook various other tasks to support the landings and the subsequent advance. There were also the DD tanks that were launched at sea with canvas sides. The rough weather meant that they were no as successful on D-Day as they might have been. In the US zone, there were launched too far out and almost all were swamped and sank.
I agree with your comments on my post and good to hear from you again. Hope you have a great summer.
John Howson