Talking D&T

Send me a message.I recently attended an event at Nottingham Trent University that wasn't really aimed at me — but it got me thinking in ways I wasn't expecting. Industry designers were talking to final-year product design students about what it takes to succeed in the profession, and I found myself scribbling notes and asking: what does any of this mean for D&T classrooms?In this episode, I share my reflections on that event and dig into some of the ideas that stuck with me. We're talking about concepts like problem framing, vision, taste and judgment — the kinds of things that experienced designers do almost instinctively. But here's the thing: when knowledge becomes tacit, when you just know how to judge a good design without being able to explain how you got there, it becomes really difficult to teach.This is something I think matters enormously for D&T teachers, particularly those who've come into teaching through a design or industry route. The professional knowledge you've built up is genuinely valuable — but your role in the classroom is to recontextualise it. To select, simplify, and make it visible for your pupils. That's not straightforward, and I don't think we talk about it enough.I also reflect on how easily professional language — taste, creativity, empathy — can become the very clichés we're trying to avoid, if we don't stop to unpick what we actually mean.So here's my challenge to you: what's the tacit knowledge you have that you've never fully examined? And how might unpicking it change what you do in the classroom?Developing “Taste” in D&T: Reflections from an NTU EventSupport the showIf you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Threads @hardy_alison or by emailing me.If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!

Send me a message.A curriculum can look tidy on paper while the teacher behind it is quietly thinking, “Am I getting this right?” We sit with that reality and treat it seriously, because design and technology education is full of high-frequency decisions that rarely come with neat, usable evidence attached. When you are choosing content, planning projects, or defending DT to senior leaders, guesswork is a poor tool, yet it is often what we are left with.This week I unpack some of the specific decision problems D&T teachers keep reporting to me: how to know whether pupils are stretched enough, what to do when learning falls flat, how to judge what is stable knowledge versus what needs updating for new technologies, and how to balance breadth and depth. We also dig into sequencing, whether to teach skills, practices, or underpinning ideas first, and how often concepts need revisiting before they become embedded as deeper, tacit understanding.Looking beyond D&T, I explore what happens when progression is unclear and teachers reach for proxies like Bloom’s taxonomy, generic assessment, or ever-more “impressive” projects. I share why that drift is understandable, how it can weaken subject clarity, and why the most useful next step is to collect and name the decisions themselves so we can find evidence that actually fits the discipline of design and technology.If you have a curriculum decision you keep revisiting, I want to hear it. Subscribe, share the podcast with your D&T community, and leave a review so more teachers can join the conversation.Share your curriculum decision problems here: D&T Curriculum Decision Evidence – Identifying Priority Decision ProblemsSupport the showIf you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Threads @hardy_alison or by emailing me.If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!

Send me a message.D&T curriculum leadership often feels like making consequential calls with half a map. When time is squeezed, pupils disengage, policies shift, and senior leaders want clear rationales, it is easy to end up relying on instinct or borrowed evidence from other subjects. I wanted to pause on a simple but uncomfortable question for primary and secondary Design and Technology subject leads across England, the UK, and beyond: what decisions are you making right now where you genuinely do not have the research evidence you would want to guide you?I explore what “evidence” means in a research sense, and why D&T can be “rich in practice but thin in evidence” when it comes to demonstrating impact on pupil progress. I share how research summaries, including work shared through the Archer Exchange Network, can clarify what has been studied, while also revealing the mismatch between published studies and the problems teachers are actually trying to solve in schools. That gap matters, because it affects curriculum design, pedagogy choices, and the conversations we have with senior leaders.Using Key Stage 3 as an example, I look at concerns that the national programmes of study feel underspecified and how unclear progression across Key Stages makes sequencing difficult. If D&T capability depends on deliberate development of knowledge and decision-making over time, then sequencing cannot be left to chance or to a string of projects. I also dig into a crucial distinction: is your issue a one-off local challenge, or a recurring structural problem that should shape the next wave of design and technology education research?If you want to help move D&T forward, finish this sentence and share it via the survey or online: “One curriculum decision I regularly have to make in design and technology without strong evidence to guide me is…” If you want to go further, then tell me some more via this form: D&T Curriculum Decision Evidence – Identifying Priority Decision Problems – Fill in formSubscribe, share with your D&T community, and leave a review so more teachers can join the conversation.Support the showIf you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Threads @hardy_alison or by emailing me.If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!