Recommendation 2 - Develop and implement a funded strategy for D&T teacher recruitment, training, CPD and retention.

Develop and implement a funded strategy for D&T teacher recruitment, training, CPD and retention.

Quality teaching will be the foundation for more students choosing to study the subject. Missed Post-Graduate Initial Teacher Training (PGITT) recruitment targets means millions earmarked for D&T teacher training bursaries goes unspent every year.

In 2022/23, only 25% of the targeted 1,825 £15,000 bursaries were taken up, leaving £20,625,000 unspent. In 2023/24, the target has risen to 2,110 with a bursary of £20,000; if only 25% are taken up again, £31,650,000 will be unspent. Positively, the D&T ITT bursary will rise to £25,000 in 24/25 which should boost recruitment.

The discrepancy between art, craft and design and D&T training bursaries may simply be pulling teachers who intend to teach art, craft and design to train in D&T, not serving to strengthen the workforce for either subject well. What’s more, some D&T teacher training still differentiates the subject into “textiles” and “electronics” which is out of step with the current single-subject curriculum.

The government must now work with the sector to reinvest this unspent money in a package of tangible interventions to support the teaching profession. Bursaries alone are insufficient and must be coupled with subject reform, classroom and CPD funding, and an elevated status for D&T in the curriculum and assessment frameworks.

In the short term, this will stabilise the teaching workforce and upskill D&T teachers so they can offer an excellent education which ‘pulls’ students into the subject. In the longer term, a strong teaching profession will be the foundation for subject renewal, with teachers redesigning the subject and their curricula.

Options include:

– Provide high-quality ITT and consistent, competitive, training bursaries. Positively, in October 2023, the government announced the PGITT bursary for D&T would be uprated from £20,000 to £25,000, on par with biology but still below the current £28,00 for computing, maths, chemistry, and physics, despite equivalent shortages. Art, craft and design trainee teachers’ £10,000 bursary has been reinstated this year.69 Ongoing consistency is key. The inconsistent approach to date has not only failed to stabilise recruitment but also created a harmful hierarchy of subjects that is having a widespread and damaging impact on teacher recruitment and retention.

– Explore setting up a scholarship route for PGITT, mirroring the existing schemes for physics, chemistry, maths and computing which work with a professional institution to provide an uplifted bursary, and ongoing mentoring and networking.

– Increase CPD funding for all D&T and art, craft and design teachers, supporting both specialist and non-specialist teachers to develop dynamic curricular, upskill on new technology and sustainability knowledge, and stay in the profession longer. Design teachers should have access to ringfenced CPD budgets and time.

– Invest in a design equivalent to the Stimulating Physics Network, which has successfully used CPD, mentoring and coaching to boost both teacher retention and student numbers for 60 lead schools’ physics departments at a cost to the Department for Education of £2.7 million.

This support could be targeted at Early Career Teachers (ECTs) who leave the subject at a higher level in their first 5 years. Supporting these teachers to stay in the profession and spearhead the renewal of the subject is vital.

– Extend the Levelling Up Premium payments to D&T teachers, who are currently excluded from the scheme70 despite similar shortage rates to chemistry, languages, mathematics, and physics teachers in deprived areas.

– Roll out a professional recruitment scheme for designers and engineers to teach D&T. Policymakers could explore and evaluate existing models to base this on, such as the government-funded “Engineers Teach Physics”.

– Pilot teacher budgets for industry and community collaborative teaching, enabling teachers to become curators of knowledge, and bring practicing designers and engineers into the classroom to teach specialist topics.

– Support teachers from all subjects to access sector-led initiatives that enrich and pioneer new approaches to design-led learning, from V&A’s Innovate to build challenges run by MATT+FIONA or industry-backed learning resources such as the D&T Associations ‘Inspired by Industry’, IET’s FIRST® LEGO® League, RIBA’s ‘Skill Up’, London School of Architecture’ Part 0, or Forth’s Fixperts. D&T will take several years to recover, so access to these initiatives is vital to enable more students to experience a great design education, within or outside of D&T. The government should work with the sector to coordinate these initiatives, for example, piloting regional design exchange hubs, built in the model of Music Hubs. This support could be set out in the Cultural Education Plan

Ensuring a thriving teaching body is the foundation for subject renewal. If a new curriculum is to be introduced, it must be created with teachers and develop their agency, rather than being implemented from the top down, potentially piling on extra workload and pressure. Improving the confidence and ability of teachers also means they can design better curricula today, based on the current subject content.