I recently met with a teacher who had attended a “Preparing for the New GCSE” inset. The teacher in question was certainly clear on the messages of the course, but by the time our meeting had finished, I was left feeling deflated. If this was going to be the new GCSE we all hoped for, was it going to be the answer to the long established issues of the subject.
Mathematics teaching, no thanks
The first contentious issue was that the advice was for D&T teachers to not concern themselves with the mathematics content. 15% of your students score in their final end of course exam was not something you should concern yourself with. Let’s just let that message sink in for a second. You are kidding right?
I have 100% confidence in my mathematics department, their results are excellent, but I am by no stretch of the imagination going to let someone else teach on my behalf, nor am I going to simply ignore the content. It is on the D&T exam, therefore it will be in the D&T curriculum, and D&T teachers will be teaching it. The issue is not the concept of mathematics teachers delivering the content, it is that it would be in place of D&T teachers tackling the topics. It is important to note that when you discuss the content with your mathematics teachers, if they are worth their salt, they will confirm the long standing agreement that students can do mathematics questions on a topic once taught, but then having to apply the learning in a different context, they struggle. So D&T really should focus perhaps not on teaching the content for the first time, but in applying context to the question styles and approaches. For this to happen, D&T need to;
1. Establish when in the year the students learn the content in question (tricky too if the setting arrangement of students mean different students learn it at different times in the year and in differentiated ways)
2. Learn how the mathematics teachers approach the topic and what they ask students to do
3. Take example contexts from mathematics, and work out how you will teach what they learnt in the context of a product or manufacturing approach.
An example is tesselation. Mathematics departments teach this. D&T teachers teach this. D&T take the approach of minimising wastage of material through tessellating the object in question, perhaps a laser cut piece of plywood, which is being batch produced. The context is clear, the application of mathematical principles is clear, D&T simply “reteach” the topic in D&T terms. But the key message is it is taught!
I have already started designing new posters for the department space, and work books are the mathematics Workbook 2.0 from Doodle. The fear factor for teachers delivering mathematics content is shared equally by students. Those who see themselves as not strong at mathematics are studying the GCSE not by choice, so why would they choose a subject with mathematics content in it? How do you sell this to students in a way that adds positivity to the course? My approach is in establishing that students have learnt the mathematics in Year 9 already, so will simply be applying learning from before the GCSE course to a GCSE course. I will even be using the line that the GCSE exam should now be “15% easier to approach” given the right or wrong nature of the question compared to a D&T question in which multiple answers are viable.
New curriculum, no thanks
Another concern from our conversation is also circulating the social media scene for D&T, powered by a blog by David Barlex, in which there is a view that if we tweek existing projects like making clocks, and simply add or bolt on content like “disruptive technology” or “enterprise”, then we are doing the subject a service. Quite the opposite I would say.
Is the new content of the GCSE a chance to throw everything out and start again. For me it is, for others perhaps not quite. The simple truth is the new GCSE, the Ebacc, and the demise of the subject has sounded out the bad D&T in schools. Good D&T survives and thrives. Bad D&T is dying out. Sadly with this, departments are struggling to recruit, and that leads only to one outcome. A school in South London I hear about frequently are reducing their option choices by 1 from 3 to 2. Not a big deal if you are a good D&T department. This one has no GCSE class, nor does it expect to recruit one next year. No GCSE means no A-Level, which means no budget for teaching because you have no students to teach.
My Year 9 plans are going to be reshaped. A fresh amount of content means a new start to me. Not that what we do is bad, but it certainly could be completely new and fresh, and with this could be a big message to the students choosing the subject. The year 9 course I am putting together will be context based, with students developing their own briefs, thinking and designing broadly, and certainly not being handed kits of cut materials to fabricate bird boxes, steady hand games, clocks, desk tidies, and other such items. Their will be clocks though, but under the context of time as a teaching aid. My thoughts are that students explore how time is used, taught, learnt and used, and develop products that support users in their day to day lives. A device that reminds me to feed my fish would be my own outcome!
How the year 7 and 8 curriculum subsequently changes will likely depend on the success of the year 9 curriculum, but certainly the language, materials and process learning, and broader areas of study will form lessons and activities within a series of projects that help students to succeed and access a more context based experience in later years. I still want to see my pupils making a specific, tolerance led, make only lamp (in the style of a lantern) using ultra bright LED’s and a simple circuit. I love that project and feel it offers the right mix of challenge and learning despite the fact the students design nothing. I also still want my youngest learners to make a memory box (a small wooden box jointed and with a clear lid where a memory can be created in physical objects). I know it isn’t forward thinking modern design, but the level of accuracy, the tool and material learning, the drawing and communication skills, and the wider opportunity for students to conduct simple design is enough at that age. Or perhaps I will see the light and loose both of these to the new content?
Coursework in Year 11 only, we can’t cope
This new feature for me was always going to be an one starter. We’ve become so worried about results we work all year on one project just to secure the grade, then hope for the best in the exam.
In anticipation of this “issue”, that the context for the coursework is only released late in Year 10, I have trialled a mini GCSE taster project with my current Year 10 students. It is late November, and at present we are two lessons into making our products. We have conducted detailed research, written a brief for the context of “Digital Learning”, and having developed and iterated our sketches, blue foam/card models, and used TinkerCad to develop virtual models, we are well on our way to finishing our products by Christmas. In fact, bar some in depth Autodesk software learning so that students can simulate in CAD as a testing approach, we are likely to finish our GCSE project by mid January. Which for me seems viable. The students will have roughly produced 40 hours of work, and the products, not very big but all creative and well designed, show scope to achieve all of this during a Year 11 course plan.
The sounds from schools heard over social media suggest this is actually a big issue. There simply will not be enough time to do this, plus teach the theory, plus prepare for the exam around other subject, all the while recruiting and maintaining interest for the A-Level course. What is going on in Year 10 for this to be the case?
So is this the GCSE we were looking for?
Which leads me back to my original question, is this new D&T GCSE the answer. Teachers will redevelop their lower school learning, reteach mathematical content in new contexts, and will have a whole academic year to prepare students for a short and sweet coursework project. Is this the GCSE we were looking for? I personally hope it is, but is the message right, is the response right, and will D&T teachers across the country get it right? Only time will tell…
Phil Holton 