Valuing progression in design and technology education

This paper is a deliberately provocative exploration of some of the issues surrounding the challenge of meeting current demands for a highly skilled workforce, whilst at the same time providing a broad and balanced experience for all young people in the UK. It does this by exploring the skills of the future and the breadth of the curriculum. The paper proposes a way of bringing these two objectives together by focusing on depth of understanding as well as providing breadth of experience. It is argued that only by developing a depth of understanding of design processes by structured progression will design and technology education make its unique contribution to pupils’ general education. The paper concludes that in order for this to be achieved, the design and technology community in the UK needs to focus on four key issues: outcomes; contexts; perspectives and pedagogy.