Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities in D&T Education: Insights from Dave Parry

In this episode of Talking D&T, I sit down with Dave Parry, Design and Technology Advisor at CLEAPSS, to discuss the current state of D&T education in England and explore potential ways to shape its future. Dave shares his insights from visiting numerous schools and highlights some of the main challenges the subject faces, including a shortage of trained staff, difficulties in recruiting and retaining teachers, and limited access to professional development opportunities.

We delve into the importance of fostering collaboration among stakeholders, such as awarding bodies, to create a shared understanding of the subject's goals and constraints. Dave emphasizes the need for teachers to embrace their agency and professionalism in designing engaging and relevant D&T curricula, while also considering sustainability and environmental issues.

Throughout our conversation, we explore practical strategies for reimagining D&T education, such as focusing on problem-solving rather than take-home projects, utilizing reusable materials and components, and leveraging community resources and partnerships. We also discuss the potential impact of the upcoming Ofsted subject review and the need for effective moderation in online teacher communities.

As we conclude our discussion, I invite listeners to engage with the ideas presented and share their thoughts on shaping the future of D&T education. Together, we can work towards a more collaborative, creative, and sustainable approach to teaching and learning in this vital subject area.

(Text generated by AI, edited by Alison Hardy)

Links to things mentioned in the show are  only available to subscribers.

Ciaran Ellis posted a thought-provoking question on LinkedIn recently: Do design decisions involve value judgements?

What do you think? Join the conversation over on LinkedIn and let us know what you think. 

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 1:03

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. This week it's another episode in the shaping dnt education series on the podcast, and I'm joined by dave parry, who's been on the podcast quite a long time ago now, wasn't it, dave? Actually?

Alison Hardy: 1:30

it was a few years ago now yeah, yeah, early days in the in the podcast. So this time dave is on talking about his thoughts about the shape of design and technology, what it is and maybe what it needs to be, and talking, hopefully, a little bit about how cleaps and dave are, and we're going to have a whole conversation whether I pronounce that connect correctly cleaps, cleaps um we did last time cleaps um about how um they're involved in facilitating a group, I think would be the best way of putting it.

Alison Hardy: 2:02

So, dave, do you want to start by just introducing yourself, so that people who haven't listened to that last one can know a little bit more about you?

Dave Parry: 2:09

Yep, hi, I'm Dave Parry. I am the Design and Technology Advisor at Cleeps. I was the lone Design and Technology Advisor at Cleeps until recently, but now we've got Trudy Barrow who does some work with us. So she does one day a week, which has increased our capacity somewhat. But my role is to support practical work in schools. So I look after design technology, art, food, anything that came under the sort of earlier versions of design technology national curriculum. My background is I was a teacher for many years. I got to head a faculty and all that for design technology and then moved into working on government projects, working on 14 to 19, working on building schools for the future and working in FE and HE, and then back to schools and then back to CLEAPS.

Alison Hardy: 2:56

So you've been around and and done quite a lot of different things, but you are. You can become a bit of a linchpin, I suppose one way of putting it in some of the conversations that have been going on around. Um, what's happening around design and technology in england at the moment, the the state it's in yeah I was found that's quite a negative statement, because I don't think it's all negative, um, it's not your statement, that's just me talking um, and you've pulled together a group of people, um, who are stakeholders um haven't invested into the subject, but you bring your own perspective about what, where you think we're at and what you think needs to be done.

Alison Hardy: 3:34

So what? What do you see as the main issues around design and technology in england at the moment?

Dave Parry: 3:40

well, to sort of put it into the meeting that we called together, or the first meeting we called together was basically to get the awarding bodies together, because in one of my previous lives I worked with QCA and QCDA on developing specs for awarding bodies and we used to generally termly, I suppose it was have meetings with the awarding bodies to discuss what was going on.

Dave Parry: 4:03

And when we had our opening day at CLEAPS in March 2022, I think it was a couple of people from the awarding bodies were there and they'd never met, and it struck me as odd that people from awarding bodies weren't meeting regularly, because that's something we used to do. So we thought we'd call everyone into the same room and see if we could get people talking, and it became quite apparent that there's very few sort of cross-party meetings. There's lots of things going on but not necessarily being shared. So we thought we'd try and not run the meeting for any other reason than to just get people to talk, just to exchange views and exchange feelings, um, and the first meeting went really well. So then we thought we'd have a second meeting and we expanded it, partly from your suggestions at the meeting, because you were there. The first one, uh, was that we needed to look at other people, other stakeholders as well. So we had not only the awarding bodies, but we also had people from the food teacher centre, textiles academy uh, we had a representative from primary.

Dave Parry: 5:04

So we've got a broader feeling of what was going on from their points of view. But from my point of view, the concern I have is I go into lots and lots of secondary schools, um, I do safety audits, I do training, uh, and I do visits in schools anyway, and I've probably been into well over a thousand secondary schools around the UK, and what I'm seeing is quite concerning in some places, in that we've got massive shortage of trained staff, we've got problems retaining staff that are in job, but we've got enormous problems recruiting new staff job, but we've got enormous problems recruiting new staff. But we also have a large body of teachers who have not accessed any cpd for the subject for many, many years. Uh, the there's a sort of general feeling that you, you might be able to get out on a course for health and safety, you might get on a course for improving your gcse results, but if it's about just finding out about your subject, there's just no access, and so one of the things that I'm trying to look at for the next meeting is to see how we can support teachers that are in the job rather than coming into the job with some sort of CPD about how they can improve their subject to put it into its negative side of things.

Dave Parry: 6:20

I still go into schools where I see lots and lots of bird boxes being made. And there's nothing wrong with making bird boxes if they're being done in a design and technology way. But when they're being done because we've got some wood and we're going to make bird boxes with no thought about the design, technology, the sustainability, the environmental issues, that, the why we're doing it, the context behind it, all of those things, then there is a problem and I think if teachers were aware of what design and technology could be, they might still make bird boxes, but they'd make them from a different point of view yes, and that's what I'm trying to get across really right, okay, so it's talking about the professional development of teachers into developing, broadening their understanding about the nature of the subject and what that looks like when they transform it in their classrooms.

Dave Parry: 7:11

Absolutely yeah, and some of the conversations I have with teachers I go in and do. I know it sounds silly, but we go into a safety audit. We end up talking about the curriculum a lot more than we do about safety, because I'm able to bring in views from other schools and so my own experience is going out of fashion now. It was a few years ago, but I'm able to say that in a school I was in two weeks ago, I saw this, or three weeks ago I saw this, and so it's quite enlightening for teachers to see that there are things going on out there that aren't necessarily the same as what they're doing.

Alison Hardy: 7:42

Yeah.

Dave Parry: 7:42

And they don't know that there's no sort of vehicle for getting that across to people.

Alison Hardy: 7:49

Yeah, there's bits and pockets. If you're in a multi-academy trust, that might happen if you've got a D&T coordinator.

Dave Parry: 7:56

Yeah.

Alison Hardy: 7:57

It might happen if you're part of the Design and Technology Association. Yeah, um, it might happen if you're part of the design and technology association, but there isn't um some of those spaces where teachers can talk and think about how they're shaping the subject where they're at.

Dave Parry: 8:12

So you've gone sorry, no, I was going to say in one of the areas I know it's been talked about on a number of occasions and you know, comes up in various discussions with various people across the awarding bodies as well, things like sustainability, environmental issues, whether we should use single-use plastics All of those things are All.

Dave Parry: 8:29

Design and technology teachers are aware of these, they all know about them, but they don't always put them into their lessons because they think that they've got to teach A when actually they could teach B and still be doing the same things in their lessons, but with a different emphasis.

Dave Parry: 8:46

And just a little aside, but one of the activities we came across, I did some work with a few people about recycling plastics and reusing plastics and there's a big push in primary schools to avoid single-use plastics and some schools have signed up to this organisation to avoid the use of single-use plastics.

Dave Parry: 9:01

And some schools have signed up to this organization to avoid the use of single-use plastics, which means that the pupils don't bring in crisp packets and they don't bring in cling film, wrapped sandwiches or whatever because they're single-use plastics. But that may have an impact when they get to secondary school and the design and technology teacher says right, we're going to make a desk tidy and we're going to use acrylic sheet, because the acrylic sheet is a single-use plastic and some children in that class might say well, you know, this is not a good idea, sir or miss, or whatever, and so it may start a conversation that secondary school teachers just haven't been aware of yeah, yeah, so it's not just across the sector in terms of secondary teachers taught sound teachers and primary to primary it so it's not just across the sector in terms of secondary teachers talking to sound teachers and primary to primary.

Alison Hardy: 9:45

It's between those sectors, isn't it?

Dave Parry: 9:47

Yes, absolutely.

Alison Hardy: 9:48

That needs to happen.

Dave Parry: 9:49

Yeah, and a few years ago there was perhaps lots of criticism laid at primary for not doing much design and technology and in some schools they would do a technology week or a design week or a creative week in the end of the summer term.

Dave Parry: 10:04

These days that's not quite the same. A lot of primary schools are doing a lot more of what we would call design and technology. Now you might not see them with workshops and food rooms and textiles facilities, but they are doing problem solving and teamwork and group work and communicating and all of those things that we capitalize on in design, technology and secondary schools yeah, so, yeah, yeah, so what so you?

Alison Hardy: 10:28

so you think professional development of the current teachers is key. Creating those networks is key where they can talk to each other, because you know there's only one of you and there's now there's now a bit of Trudy, but what are the other things that you see as being the current position?

Dave Parry: 10:48

the current challenges that the subject's facing. I think I was chatting to some people a couple of weeks ago with DFE discussion going on about recruitment and retention. Obviously there have been terrible problems about recruitment over the last few years for design technology anyway. Um, retention, that's a problem because we've got a lot of uh design technology teachers who are leaving because they're getting towards retirement age or whatever. So those are. I think those are the two biggest main issues that need to be addressed because otherwise, if we haven't got the teachers, can't do anything.

Dave Parry: 11:19

The other thing is that there are some aspects of cost in the subject that are very difficult to balance for schools when we've got schools that have got very tight budgets. You look at staffing, design and technology and you're looking at class sizes that are half the size of a science group, for instance, or an arts group, so you need twice as many teachers. That makes it expensive. You've got resources, you've got equipment. All of those things have got a financial impact on the subject.

Dave Parry: 11:48

I've seen quite a few secondary schools that are having difficulties timetabling and sort of increase the group sizes. Well, increase, increasing the group sizes is fine if you can find a way of still delivering a practical subject. But you know, just to use the health and safety side of things, the british standard says class sizes shouldn't be above 20. Dfe now say that class sizes shouldn't be above 24, which is it's not a health and safety thing, it's a timetabling thing. But if you've got a new facility, a new room, you might find that you've got a slightly bigger room with slightly less equipment, which means you could get away with perhaps a slightly bigger group, but it's still expensive and it's still expensive on timetabling. So there's the staffing side of it and then there's the cost side of it and I say that the CPD side is just non-existent.

Dave Parry: 12:39

So there's lots of things that are affecting the subject and I know from your work that you do a lot of research into this. There's things like the assessment progression within design technology is not very good. The exam results might reflect success at GCSE, but they're not necessarily improving on their abilities when they came in at year seven because they were good. Good to start with. Yeah, oh, so that's my phone. Just sorry about that that's all right.

Alison Hardy: 13:09

I realized decide that wasn't a wild animal you had in your house no, it's a coyote yeah, yeah, like you said, said that. You said you were feeding the dog treats when we first joined on the course.

Dave Parry: 13:19

You never know, you never know yeah.

Alison Hardy: 13:23

I mean, you know, I know Tony Ryan's spoken about this. You know, from the perspective of the head teacher, if you can't get, the staff and if you're expensive and it's compounded by historically, the subject may not have had great results. We're talking about secondary here.

Dave Parry: 13:38

Yes, yes.

Alison Hardy: 13:39

Then it's very difficult to justify it. And then if you're now an academy where you don't need to follow the national curriculum, although you're expected to have a broad and balanced and I know we do know the Ofsted tail wags the school dog, for want of a better phrase They've had more of an emphasis on broad and balanced. We know that's part of the impact in primary. That's why we're seeing the growth absolutely in primary and with it, but with a new chief inspector that might change yes, yeah, absolutely.

Dave Parry: 14:10

It has had an impact in primary um and I think if you spoke to tony at uh design technology association, the, the uptake of membership at primary level has been enormous for data, yeah, which is great. The more people that get involved in that, the more they're sharing ideas and working together. It's great. Secondary is still not quite as well working in terms of sharing ideas. There's lots of Facebook pages. They tend to be very negative. I sit and watch quite a lot of the Facebook pages tend to be very negative. I sit and watch quite a lot of the Facebook pages, not not because I'm just a natural voyeur, but because I keep my eye on anything that might come up on terms of health and safety. I don't tend to join in, but I sort of get a feel for what's going on, but there's an awful lot of negativity out there.

Alison Hardy: 14:58

It's very easy to get pulled down in those sorts of forums absolutely so that to the lowest denominator, isn't it the lowest common denominator? It's. It's easier to be pulled down than it is to raise up which is what I find is quite a challenge sometimes around some of those facebook pages.

Dave Parry: 15:12

And so yes, yeah, and when you look at the, the food teacher center, of course that's very positive and very supportive of its members? Um and this was raised at the the last meeting we had at cleaps that if there's, if the facebook teacher center can be so successful on facebook, why isn't there a similar setup for design technology? Um, and there there isn't. There is no um camaraderie, if you like, in designing technology, like there is in the food teacher center no, no, but yeah, yeah.

Alison Hardy: 15:43

So I think what louise has done, and you know I greatly admire the, the food teacher center, because I think as you say the, the culture there is very positive um, and that's not to say that the people who set up the design and technology ones um, were looking for negativity. It's all about the, the strength of the moderation, isn't it? So I suppose thinking about what, what could be done we've you know what could be done is is about that. Moderation is is people um kind of saying, well, this resource exists or this question has existed. I'm part of a facebook group which is for women in academia. We can with women in Academia's support network in careers and that's a really good support network and that is very closely moderated by quite a group of people who kind of gently move things to one side if it's negative or you know if the responses and the comments aren't helpful.

Alison Hardy: 16:41

Um so yeah, on a very practical level, I think. I think that model from the food teacher center is is a really positive one yeah to take on board. I mean the association. I'm conscious they don't have a facebook group. I mean I'm not saying suggesting they they do lots of things, but I think that moderation about what is good, d&t isn't happening in those spaces where teachers are naturally going or being carefully challenged, shall we?

Dave Parry: 17:10

say exactly, and that's part of the reason why the Future Minds magazine that we produce at Cleeps we try to exemplify good practice through there.

Dave Parry: 17:17

The original set up for Future Minds, the magazine that we produce at Cleeps. We try to exemplify good practice through there. The original setup for Future Minds was about exemplifying good practice in terms of health and safety but obviously that's grown over time and over the last 12 months it's changed quite dramatically with Trudy getting involved. But we try to look at what's good out there to try and communicate that across the teachers. It's not a two-way stream, so it's not like Facebook where you can join in a conversation and discuss things, but at least we're trying to exemplify good practice.

Dave Parry: 17:47

Unfortunately, when you go onto the Facebook pages, what I tend to see on there is some good practice and some outstanding good practice, which is fantastic, but you also see some pretty poor practice, which reinforces the poor practice, because you'll get some people on there saying, oh, this is fantastic, when actually it's not really fantastic but, without the moderation, without someone stepping in and saying, well, this is good, or this is this should be supported more, or this should be supported less. There's no one doing that yeah, or asking any questions.

Alison Hardy: 18:17

I'm curious why you decided to do it like this or which part of the curriculum is this so I need to see, but then that's another part of the debate, isn't it? I suppose thinking about what should be done is where do we have the debate about what good dnt is now? We know that you know again talking about ofsted the ofsted tail, wagging the curriculum and school dog.

Alison Hardy: 18:41

Yes, that there have been subject reviews for other subjects yes, they have but as we record the dnt one isn't out yet no I'm having to be really careful, yeah I think yes I'm, I'm um, people who know will know why I'm being very careful um, because there is one written um, it's about it's. It's stuck in the structures, shall we? Say of ofsted, not for any bad reason or any uh reason of ofsted saying that we don't think dnt is worth it. It's nothing to do that. It's just stuck in the Ofsted procedures at the moment. But I think something like that would really help with putting that debate out there for teachers.

Alison Hardy: 19:28

This is what the research says good, d&t looks like.

Dave Parry: 19:32

Yeah, absolutely, and I won't be negative about Ofsted. I don't think they get enough bad press from other people without us joining in, but I think if an Ofsted report came out about design technology, it would have a massive impact on schools. I can't speak with any data about it, but anecdotally I think the arts one has already had an impact.

Alison Hardy: 19:56

The geography.

Dave Parry: 19:57

One's already had an impact. These things are out there and it will have an impact. As long as that is not published, then it's having no impact.

Alison Hardy: 20:04

Yeah, yeah, and it's a shame because, at the moment it is written, it's just waiting, as said, to go through the processes, even if it was wholly negative, even if it said what an awful subject it is and we should scrap it.

Dave Parry: 20:15

At least it would start a conversation, but it's not saying anything. I can tell you it doesn't do that tell you if somebody that I'm sure it doesn't.

Alison Hardy: 20:23

But it is a curriculum research review. It's about what the research says, and so it's those sorts of things, I think, that are needed to help facebook groups, teachers groups, have those discussions, to give them, for one of the best words, some design criteria.

Dave Parry: 20:38

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Dave Parry: 20:39

You know, and it's like everything. Yogi Berra, who's a baseball player in the States very big on quotations. I used to have quite a few of his quotes up on the wall in my classrooms. One of them was if you don't know where you're going, you won't know when you've got there. Yeah, and the Ofsted report might not give us any targets. It might not give us any direction, but at least we'll have a bit more direction than we've got at the moment, and so if we know which way we're headed, we might actually get there when we don't know which way we're headed who knows what we're doing?

Alison Hardy: 21:10

Yeah, yeah. So that's something else that could be done, is we could? Get the research review out there for the subject. You've talked about developing CPD. We've talked about sort of forums and spaces and you've talked about the exam boards talking to each other. What's the benefit of the exam boards talking to each other? What difference does that make to a teacher on the ground?

Dave Parry: 21:34

Well, one of to take it the other way, it's a slight different twist on your question there, but really, when I speak to lots of teachers in lots of schools and this sounds terribly negative about teachers, it's not meant to be negative about teachers, but they will criticise someone else.

Dave Parry: 21:53

It's the awarding bodies tell us to do this or the DfE tell us to do this, or Ofsted tell us to do this. It's someone else has told them what to do. Or the DfE tell us to do this, or Ofsted tell us to do this. It's, someone else has told them what to do. And actually it's very rarely true, um, and when you speak to the awarding bodies, you find out that they're constrained by various different things as well, um, and they don't stipulate what has to be taught. They stipulate what's assessed, but they don't stipulate what you're teaching and the DfE don't stipulate what you're teaching and the DfE don't stipulate what you're teaching. And I think there's a conversation we had at the last meeting. It's about the ownership of what you're teaching, and so, having the awarding bodies together, we find that there's there's a common understanding then of what the awarding bodies can, but also what they can't do, and I think that was quite an interesting discussion at our first meeting was what they can't do. They can't change the national curriculum.

Alison Hardy: 22:47

No.

Dave Parry: 22:47

They can't change the GCSE. That's not their job. I don't know whose job it is sometimes, but their hands are tied just as much as schools. But I think some teachers don't realize how much power they've got to choose what they teach. They think that and and this came up much more in science than in design technology in science there are uh practicals that are set by the awarding bodies in the a-level programs and those aren't um practicals that they have to do. They are exemplars.

Dave Parry: 23:22

But what schools believed when they first were released was that that's what they had to do. So they all started doing the same practical work and it had a negative impact in some schools. Science teaching, because they're all doing the same practicals um the cleaps was involved in trying to to burst that bubble to make sure that schools didn't feel that they all had to do the same practicals. But if we had some sort of information from the awarding bodies saying that you can do whatever you like, really, as long as you fulfil the criteria, we might get more freedom in what we're teaching. I think schools are frightened that they've got to teach what's in the specification to the letter to be able to get the GCSEs, when actually that's not really the case.

Alison Hardy: 24:05

No, yeah, there are preconceptions. I mean, I see things on Facebook and other places. You know the curriculum says we have to do this, or the exam board says we have to do this. In fact, I've got Louise Atwood from AQA coming on the podcast and is going to talk a little bit about what exam boards can and can't do and what their limitations are and where teachers can get involved in shaping what exam boards do and what their constraints are as well. So I think that would be really useful to hear that from where there was lots and lots of woodwork stuff going on.

Dave Parry: 24:44

And every pupil was making bird feeders or small wooden box type activities. And I said just question, why are you doing it From a health and safety point of view? You're generating lots and lots of wood dust, and wood dust is something that really we should try to avoid where we can, where we can, not saying that you can't use wood, but you need to control the dust. And if you've got everyone working with wood all the time, you're generating lots of dust. And they said, oh, we've got to do this because it's what the awarding bodies expect. Well, that's not true. You know the awarding bodies don't expect everyone to do woodwork. You know they don't expect everyone to do 3d printing.

Alison Hardy: 25:18

They don't expect everyone to do woodwork.

Dave Parry: 25:19

They don't expect everyone to do 3D printing, they don't expect everyone to do anything. And so, if we can get over, if the warding bodies can put the information out, if we as CLEAPS can put that information out, if the Ofsted report can put that information out, use your own powers as teachers. Use your professional ability to come up with some interesting schemes. Just my own teaching. One of the things I've harked back on many, many times is we didn't have a lot of discipline problems because we all of the teachers in my department taught what they wanted to teach and were engaged with themselves, and if they were engaged and excited by what they were doing, the kids were yeah, yeah, yeah, it does make, does make a difference, and also motivating the teachers to do what they want to do.

Alison Hardy: 26:00

Yeah, and it is about agency, you know teachers having that agency? Yeah, have fun, but also have that agency. No, you know, rely on your own professionalism really. But, also read the documents. Yeah, don't take it as read that this is what the exam board says or whatever.

Dave Parry: 26:19

Just look at the documents and do that interpretation and if they've got any questions, ask them you know you mentioned louise, there's phil, there's all the people that work in the awarding bodies are more than happy to answer questions from teachers, um, and so it's one of the things I used to do as head of department if I had any queries, just phone them up. Yeah, and I still do that now, you know, and that's why we had the meetings at cleats, because if I want to ask someone something, I'll get on the phone and ask them yes, and perhaps having them all in the same room helps and we move on yes, yes, I mean there's another meeting planned, isn't there in?

Alison Hardy: 26:53

march, yeah, um and dfe are coming along to that. That would be good to get their perspective. Yes, that's right.

Dave Parry: 27:03

We had a DfE team represented at the last meeting. That was from the building, the schools and design schools side of things, which I think was quite interesting for people to realise that when you get a new room built for design and technology, it was designed in the 1980s and the equipment would have been moved in from old rooms and all sorts of things. But it doesn't have to be like that. It can be a new room and new facilities and all sorts of different design criteria can be brought into play. So that was quite interesting.

Dave Parry: 27:34

And the next meeting we've got Mike coming in from the curriculum side of the DfE to have a Not so much to give an input, because what I want is for him to have a listen as much as anything, to what people have got to say about what's going on out there. We've got the awarding bodies all invited and so far I've had replies. The invitation only went out last week. I've had replies from five or six people that are coming, so I know Tony will be there. From data We've got awarding bodies come in. We'll have Food Teacher Centre there again, Textiles Academy there again, so it's going to be some of the same faces and some new ones.

Alison Hardy: 28:08

Yeah, and I'll do a podcast afterwards, if that's okay. I mean, obviously we'll maybe chat to you afterwards about what's being talked about what I can say, because some people obviously want to keep some things confidential, that. But it'd be good to share that on the podcast about some of those, some of those outcomes. And yeah, um, maybe use absolutely chatham house rules about. You know, I don't, I don't assign to anybody what's being said, but some of the general themes would be really good to to share with people yeah yeah, yeah and so in the future minds.

Dave Parry: 28:37

That's just gone live. Uh, the future minds went live a couple of weeks ago. It's got the notes from the last meeting on the uh introduction part of the future minds, so it's. It gives a basic feel for the conversations that we had so we've talked a lot about.

Alison Hardy: 28:51

We talked about some of the issues and one of the issues the current position that you talked about, um, I'm curious to know about what could be done is about resourcing and the cost of resourcing, which means in such a way, what could be done? In such a way that it doesn't take away the essence of the subject, where children get to handle materials, realise their ideas in different forms, but also recognising the fact we've got sustainability and we've we haven't got austerity so much, but we have got financial issues in schools at the moment, you know, with budget. So what, what can be done, but that still keeps D&T as D&T. What's your thoughts on that?

Dave Parry: 29:32

well it's.

Dave Parry: 29:34

It's go against the grain to some teachers, but you don't have to make things that you take home and it's a conversation I had with my head of department, uh, when I was on teaching practice.

Dave Parry: 29:44

So this is going back a million years ago, back to the 1980s, that we didn't make things that the kids took home. We didn't make things for mums and dads or others to be proud of. We made things to solve problems, and so if you're doing that, you can use things like kits. You can use reusable materials. I know there's a school I went into just a couple of weeks ago where they do desk lamps as a GCSE project, or some of the pupils are doing desk lamps as a GCSE project, but they're making models out of card and paper, which then they make their final item out of renewable material or reusable materials. So they're stipulating in their design brief that they must use a material which can be taken apart after use to be reused, which means when they finish the project, the technician can then take all the lights apart, put the kits parts back away and next year they can come back and be reused again. So there's not using any raw materials, and I think that's quite an interesting aspect to design technology that perhaps is not being fully experimented with in schools yeah you can use materials, but perhaps use reusable materials yes, or reusable components yeah

Dave Parry: 30:57

yeah, I was. I went for a meeting with CR Clark on Thursday a couple of weeks ago In South Wales. They make a lot of the plastics manipulating machines that we use in schools things like vacuum formers, line benders and whatever and they are working on the plastic shredders and heating systems that you can shred second-hand plastic, so things like milk bottle tops or whatever. You can shred them and then heat them up, press them and turn them into ingots or flat sheets you can use on vacuum formers or you can make material, make things out of them.

Dave Parry: 31:30

Whatever they're now looking at developing one that will work with acrylic right so the the problem with acrylic is that when you heat it up it has to be cooled slowly. You can't just let it cool. It has to be cooled under certain conditions. So they're developing new presses and new pieces of equipment for that. So there are companies out there trying to come up with ideas for schools to be able to reuse materials in better ways. Obviously that will have a cost. You you know machines will be cost, you know will cost money. But that's another area that perhaps design and technology can capitalise on that other departments won't be able to even touch on and makes design technology have that important part in the curriculum again that they can look at sustainability, environmental issues, all of those things, but also look at it from reusing and recycling materials at their base level.

Alison Hardy: 32:20

Yeah, and then it makes me think, then there's a potential there that every school will think they've got to have one of these machines, or a couple, you know, because they might be doing different materials and different processes. And they start thinking, well, why can't you have a centre? But I mean, this is where local authorities would have had their day, wouldn't they? They would have been a fantastic place to have Because, again, it's the cost of buying these things.

Alison Hardy: 32:44

And so maybe that's a challenge back to CRC to say how do you create centres across the country where people can subscribe? That's kind of like the idea of retirement maker spaces and hack spaces, isn't it? Maybe there needs to be D&T spaces.

Dave Parry: 32:59

Absolutely yeah, and many, many, many years ago I used to use the teacher centre. I used to have all sorts of equipment I could go and borrow from the teacher centre to use in my school. Those sorts of facilities have gone Under the TVEI initiative, which was back in the 80s.

Alison Hardy: 33:16

I was going to say, I assume recent.

Dave Parry: 33:20

Yeah, but in Hertfordshire they set up what was called HITECH, which was a centre that was staffed by teachers, fully equipped as design and technology facility, but with cutting edge design and technology at the time which was things like line benders and laser cutters and stuff and CNC equipment and you could send your kids there. So as a a teacher, I could send my kids in a minibus there for a day or two and they could do some project work with design technology teachers but not me, in a facility that was specially designed to be pushing the boundaries of the facilities that we have in schools.

Dave Parry: 33:54

Those sorts of facilities aren't really there anymore. The funding's been dropped for those, but it could come back. Yeah, it doesn't mean it has to go forever.

Alison Hardy: 34:03

But it is thinking about rural communities. I used to teach in North Lincolnshire and travelling anywhere from there was difficult, so it has to consider that. But it's also. You know DATRE have got this initiative, haven't they, where they're loaning out 3D printers to primary schools. It's that kind of thing. You know, we used to get the Dyson box and things like that, or the ones from the design museum. But it's just starting to be creative. But, as you say, who's going to fund those and who's going to buy into them?

Dave Parry: 34:34

Yeah, there is a bit of a responsibility on things like the lead school in an academy trust. Um that you know, back in the days when the academies were first setting themselves up as multi-academy trust, the idea that one school would be a lead and would have, uh, lead practitioners and lead facilities that could be used by other schools in the trust um, so that that's a possibility that there's a requirement on fee paying schools, on public schools, to support the local communities as part of their charity group. So if you've got a local public school, you might have access to some facilities there that you wouldn't have in a normal state school. A lot of public schools have got fantastic facilities and do some fantastic design technology. You know I do a lot of audits in private schools. They've got fantastic stuff that you could access and they'd be more than happy to help out as well.

Dave Parry: 35:26

There's colleges I've worked in a few colleges, and colleges have great engineering facilities and construction facilities that schools don't have. So they're there.

Alison Hardy: 35:35

It just takes a bit of time and a bit of effort to get access to it and working out what it is that you want from them as well, I think, is the other side, isn't it which comes back to this? Professional forum. Isn't it these spaces where these conversations can happen?

Dave Parry: 35:48

Yeah, and it works the other way as well. With primary schools, one of the things we used to do as a department, we had basically a toolbox. It was a trolley of tools which we would send to our local primary schools, which had some things like hammers and hand, you know, things like hammers and tenon saws, he hadn't featured, he had to, he had to pop in had to come in at the end. Had to come in at the end. It must be time to finish off.

Alison Hardy: 36:10

Yeah, that's what he's saying to me. I've not had any first. Yeah yes but yeah, that, that idea of sharing and building up communities. But I do come back to you know, we have to think about the rural, the rural schools. Yes, don't have that ease of transport where things can become very expensive when we're traveling around. But as, as the dog has indicated, that we have been talking for too long and I'm looking at the fact that we've been going.

Alison Hardy: 36:36

We're going over 30 minutes, which is, um, you know, I hadn't, I hadn realised, but we've covered a lot of ground. I really like the fact, dave, that we've talked about or you've shared with what you think are some of the issues around the current position, and I think we've then talked about some very practical things that could be done, and I'd encourage people to. If you can, send me a link to the last publication of the Future.

Alison Hardy: 36:57

Mind I'll put that in the show notes and then people can see that discussion and then we'll do a follow-up, sort of talking about the meeting in March and people's input, I'd be really interested to see if anybody who leads the Facebook groups has thought about moderation and has looked at the, the food teacher center um yeah group.

Alison Hardy: 37:20

Interestingly, I'm having a conversation with somebody in america in the next couple of weeks who set up an online group and talk about how she's done it because I'm thinking about doing the same um again with moderators and experts, so, but I think the space for for those involved in those facebook groups to do something similar but I know Louise and the team at Foodstager Centre have won all sorts of awards from Facebook itself for being such a well-organised group.

Dave Parry: 37:46

So it works. It just works.

Alison Hardy: 37:48

It does, it does it's.

Dave Parry: 37:49

Hats off to them, and they've done it with no winning, absolutely yeah, exactly yeah, they're all volunteers, yeah yeah, it's good, well as ever.

Alison Hardy: 37:57

Dave, thanks very much for the conversation. I'll let you go back to feed your treats to your dog or to your coyote whatever it is that you've got, take it for.

Dave Parry: 38:03

Yeah.

Alison Hardy: 38:04

Take it for a walk now, yeah 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 D&T community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your D&T 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, dralisonhardycom. 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.