Forging a positive future for D&T

Forging a positive future for D&T

With a new Parliament soon to begin, and building on the momentum of the Creative Industries Sector Vision, there is renewed energy behind getting creative and technical education right. This briefing sets out the causes, impact, and solutions to restoring the strength of Design & Technology in schools and ensuring all secondary school pupils can access a great design education.

About D&T and Art, craft and design

Design and technology (D&T) is a national curriculum subject in all UK nations. Using creativity and imagination, pupils design, make, prototype and test products that solve real problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values.26 It is a subject which teaches applied creativity and empathy.

Art and design is a distinct national curriculum subject. Its study enables pupils to understand, appreciate and contribute to a dimension of life that taps into and expresses human innovation, imagination and thought. When studying the subject, pupils can specialise in different areas of practical making including painting, sculpture, photography, textiles and graphic design. The subject has a significant craft element so will be referred to throughout the paper as ‘art, craft and design’.

Art, craft and design and D&T have complementary but distinct roles to play in education, society and industry. Both strongly develop creative problem-solving skills. D&T has a greater focus on applied and functional solutions, often in response to tightly defined challenges or ‘design briefs’. This also means D&T tends toward more specific technical knowledge around engineering, design, materials and technologies. On the other hand,

art, craft and design has a greater focus on creative self-expression, and develops more exploratory, open-ended, and concept-driven responses from students. Practically, at GCSE there is no written exam in art, craft and design, and the qualification is awarded based 100% on coursework, whereas D&T has 50% examined content. The creative process and a focus on learning through making is what unites both subjects.

D&T and art, craft and design both feed into design careers, as well as a range of other vocations across the creative industries, digital, engineering, architecture, manufacturing and more. Declines in students studying these subjects is likely to constrict the talent pipeline into these industries.

The value of design education

Throughout the paper we refer to ‘design education’. By this we mean learning which develops design capabilities, knowledge and skills. Design can be taught through many different subjects, though today is predominantly taught through D&T and art, craft and design qualifications. Independent organisations like the National Saturday Club, MATT+FIONA, Open City, POoR Collective, and Daydream Believers also support young peoples’ design education inside and outside of

school settings. All these learning pathways are important, and when thinking about the future education system, we consider design education as a whole, beyond current subject demarcations.

There are powerful arguments for the value of design education and D&T:

– Design is at the heart of our future green and digital economy. D&T brings together STEM and creative skills through a coherent design process. D&T is one of the few spaces in the school curriculum where science and creativity meet and where in-demand ‘Future Skills’ (Kingston University), World Economic Forum top skills, and ‘Innovation Skills’ (IFaTE/ Innovate UK) such as critical thinking, problemsolving, and initiative can be purposefully developed. Curriculum space to learn and apply these capabilities is vital in the context of rapid technological developments like AI. Additionally, the design economy itself is growing at twice the rate of the economy as a whole, and building a net zero economy will create thousands of jobs for engineers and designers. LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills report names sustainable design as one of the fastest growing green skills. D&T is a subject with the potential to develop this resilient future talent pipeline.

– People who use design skills are 49% more productive than the average UK worker. 1 in 7 people use design skills in their work, and designers are 29% more productive than the average UK worker. Design is a foundational skill, as much a part of the grammar of life and work as numeracy and oracy are. Design – applying user, customer, citizen or community –centred approaches to creativity and invention to ensure more successful outcomes – is fundamental to people in all walks of life and a skill for life all schools must cover. D&T is one of the only opportunities young people have to develop rich design skills such as haptic intelligence, practicality, ingenuity, and empathy. The decline of the subject therefore risks exacerbating UK skills and productivity gaps and depriving the next generation from practicing design as a core ‘skill for life’.

– The decline in D&T deepens the diversity and social mobility crisis in the sector. Today’s design workforce is disproportionately male (77%) and from more privileged backgrounds. This matters for social mobility and equity, but also because the design workforce does not represent the consumers they are designing for, which risks damaging social impacts. Encouraging a greater diversity of pupils to take these subjects is a key mechanism we can use to help increase diversity in the sector and inclusive design. The decline of D&T in state schools risks entrenching socio-economic inequalities in industry and undermining social mobility.

The causes of decline in D&T

The complex interaction of teacher numbers, school accountability measures, curriculum and qualification reforms, alongside the financial constraints most schools may face, and implications of the fast pace of change within the design and engineering professions, make for a complex picture behind the persistent decline.

Significantly, from 1988 to 2002, D&T was a compulsory subject; all students had to study it until they were 16 unless they made an individual case to opt out. When the subject was made non-compulsory, a decline in uptake was clearly expected, though this doesn’t fully explain the continuing rate of decline 20 years later.

While it is still compulsory to study D&T up to 14/KS3, and all students have a theoretical entitlement to study D&T at GCSE, many schools struggle to effectively resource this. While academies are required to offer a broad curriculum, which in theory protects D&T as a pathway, the flexible definition of creativity allows academies to offer art, craft and design alone. Some schools are either not offering D&T in practice or are steering students away from the subject. In more simple cases, students just aren’t choosing to keep studying the subject after 14.

There are several interacting factors behind this trend.

Teachers and Teaching

In schools where teaching quality is excellent, and school leadership values the subject highly, entries are sometimes able to buck the national trend in decline. This is demonstrated by growing numbers and diversity of pupils choosing D&T at GCSE in leading schools like Upton Hall near Liverpool and Coop Academies Stoke. Yet this is often not the case because:

– Schools struggle to hire specialist teachers. It is extremely challenging for schools to hire qualified D&T teachers. ITT targets are dramatically missed each year, D&T teachers are retiring at a high rate, many Early Career Teachers leave the profession within a few years of qualifying, and vacancies are often near impossible to fill. There was a 2% vacancy rate for D&T teachers in 2022, the highest rate of all subjects except modern foreign languages. If a school is not able to hire a qualified head of department, they cannot ensure the quality of provision and so often won’t offer the subject. Multi-trust academies sometimes have just one specialist teacher covering multiple schools, with the bulk of lessons being delivered by non-specialists.

– Teachers cannot access the training and support they need. When the D&T curriculum content changed in 2017, poor (or no) access to CPD meant teachers weren’t always supported to redesign their curricula. Many left the subject, for instance moving to teach their material area through art, craft and design. Without appropriate CPD, teachers struggle to teach new technologies, material areas, design frameworks, maths content, and topics such as sustainability, limiting the breadth and quality of the subject. The quality of teaching is a key factor in students’ attainment, as well as shaping GCSE decisions over and above future career aspirations.

Subject content

The changing landscape within which the D&T sits has also affected student uptake:

– Impact of the 2017 subject reforms. There was a significant drop in D&T GCSE numbers between 2017 and 2019 when a new D&T content was introduced. It merged GCSEs in D&T Systems and Control, Product Design, Textiles, Graphic Communication, and Resistant Materials into a single qualification, and separated Food into Food and Nutrition. The proportion of examined content increased. This meant teachers had to teach a broader range of technical ‘core’ content across all material areas in less depth, as well as one or more material areas in the same or greater depth as before. In some schools, the shift pushed students and teachers to art, craft and design which is 100% coursework end-stage assessed, giving teachers greater control over teaching with no core examined technical content to teach. Qualification numbers for 2019 show a steep fall in D&T qualifications and a corresponding sharp rise in art and design qualifications. The Textiles Skills Centre’s research shows that 32% of schools that offer a textiles GCSE had recently switched from D&T to art and design.

– Students opting for more vocational or technical alternatives. Sometimes it is suggested that the fall in D&T corresponds with more students choosing to study vocational or technical alternatives such as BTECs, NVQs, apprenticeships or T-Levels. Teacher insights suggest this is not a substantive factor as these technical routes remain challenging to access for most students. The EPI rejects a causal connection between the uptick in vocational engineering qualifications and the decline in D&T.

While these external changes contribute towards the downward trend in D&T numbers, we also need to look at challenges within the current D&T curriculum:

– Outdated approach to ‘making things’: Consultation with teachers suggests that the main curriculum issues lie at KS3 (year 7 to year 9), in which schools have settled into a routine of ‘making things’. Learning often focuses on the end product (pencil case, clock, box etc.) rather than on learning through the designing and making process. There is an insufficient focus on sequentially developing skills and knowledge over those three years, underpinned by a reduction in qualified teaching time. Students’ poor experiences at KS3 frequently puts them off studying the GCSE and serve to reinforce parental stereotypes of the subject being an offer most suited to the less able students.

– GCSE curriculum breadth and quality: The curriculum improves at GCSE/KS4 with a focus on contextual design challenges, experimenting with methodologies and materials, and prototyping. However, there are challenges with the way teachers approach the breadth of examined content. Additionally, maths content makes up 15% of the examination, which is challenging for some to teach, and may duplicate learning when all students are required to take a GCSE maths at KS4. Exam grade results tend to be lower than art and design.

– GCSE and A-Level curriculum relevance: As well as a lack of understanding within HE and industry of what capabilities D&T equips students with today, current teaching of the curriculum also isn’t consistently supporting students to gain the knowledge and skills most relevant to industry and HE, across all schools. Foundational design skills such as sketching, modelling, user research, and evaluation and improvement are not always taught consistently to a high standard. And there is a need for an approach to design learning that is centred around purposeful design - designing solutions that work for the planet and people, reflecting how the climate crisis is fundamentally transforming the design industry. Less than 50% of young designers (aged 16-24) PDR and YouGov surveyed for the Design Council believed their formal education had enabled them to design for the environment.

– Fractured pathway to HE. No design or engineering courses in the UK currently require applicants to have a D&T A-Level or GCSE as to do so would significantly limit applicant numbers. This ‘catch 22’ situation, may itself have become a significant contributor to the decline in student numbers.

Values and perceptions

– Parent, teacher, student, and public perceptions of D&T. At least partly, D&T numbers are falling because students aren’t choosing to study it. The value of design and creative industries professions are not celebrated enough in the public eye to ‘pull’ students in. Parents of more disadvantaged students are often worried about HE debt and lower salaries associated with design and steer children towards ‘safer’ choices. This is less the case in private schools, where design and creative subjects are seen as vital to a well-rounded education and a successful career. Equally, women, disabled people, and people from ethnic minorities are underrepresented in both the design profession and in the D&T student body.47 This discrepancy exacerbates social mobility and diversity problems in the creative and design industries. Government and industry must work together to engage more young people and their carers with the number of highly rewarding careers design can offer, building on the ‘careers promise’ set out in the Creative Industries Sector Vision.

Educational policy and the wider system

The decline in D&T should be understood in the context of wider educational policy changes which have impacted all subjects:

– School accountability measures - EBacc. The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is a performance measure for schools which consists of a combination of five subject pillars, excluding creative subjects like D&T. Secondary schools are measured on the number of pupils that take GCSEs in these core subjects, as well as how well their pupils do in these subjects.

One consequence of the EBacc is that students have limited ‘free’ options (i.e., most only have space to study one creative subject), and school resources are often pulled away from non-EBacc subjects such as D&T. Adding D&T to the EBacc is not a silver bullet, but wider accountability reform would contribute to subject renewal.

– Ofsted assessment frameworks. Pressure from Ofsted is a driver of how schools allocate resources and inform student choices. In secondary schools Ofsted have prioritised performance in core subjects, subject deep dives are highly stressful for subject leads and arguably encourage more conservative teaching approaches. On the other hand, since Ofsted updated its guidance for primary schools, stressing the importance of creative and design subjects within a broad and balanced curriculum, the subject has grown in numbers and stature.

Furthermore, Ofsted are yet to publish their Curriculum Research Review of D&Tthe only remaining National Curriculum subject where the review is not yet published.

– PISA framework. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) framework informs education policy. It evaluates each country’s educational systems by measuring 15-year-old students’ performance on mathematics, science, and reading. In practice, it incentives policymakers to target high performance in these three areas (maths, science and reading) as it does not consistently value high performance in other ability areas. However, every year PISA tests an ‘innovative’ assesment area such as ‘Collaborative Problem Solving’ (2015) or ‘Creative Thinking’ (2022).

In these cases, the skills assesed draw heavily on design, in other years like 2025’s ‘Learning in the Digital World’ or 2018’s ‘Global Competence’ less so. Disappointingly, in 2022 the UK chose to opt-out of the Creative Thinking assesment. If the PISA framework could be updated to permanently include a design-relevant assesment area like Creative Thinking in the core framework, policymakers and schools may be incentivised to invest in D&T.

– Squeezed school budgets. Real-term cuts to school funding since 201053 have squeezed school spending per pupil.54 Teachers often can’t afford the equipment needed to provide high-quality making and design experiences. In one instance, a product design teacher at a state school in Berkshire has experienced an annual department budget reduced from £3-4k to £790, which needs to cover 430 students.55 This is having a damaging effect on student learning experience. D&T’s hands-on making approach requires specialist equipment, spaces, health and safety accreditation, materials, and staff training which can be expensive to run.

Across the UK

In Northern Ireland D&T is formally part of the STEM curriculum. The subject is only seeing a slight decline but from a lower starting point. However, the creative richness of the curriculum offer is seen to be lacking, and creativity in the curriculum is not consistently championed.

In Wales there are recent, significant changes to secondary education with the Curriculum for Wales. D&T numbers are falling, but the process of designing is being mainstreamed with students using design approaches to join up learning between subject areas. There are 6 ‘areas of learning and experience’, with D&T falling into ‘science and technology’56 and art and design into ‘Expressive Arts’.

In Scotland, the subject is in decline, though at a slower rate. In addition to the factors shared with England above –principally curriculum quality, teacher recruitment, and fractured pathways to HE –the diversification of Level 3 qualifications, with 6 distinct D&T-related options, is fragmenting student choice.