The national curriculum requires that the subjects of the school curriculum:

• have a distinctive character and ethos rooted in their local communities
• are robust enough to define and defend their core of knowledge and cultural experience
• inspire in their pupils a joy and commitment to learning that will last a lifetime.

The robust discipline of design and technology comprises:

• the intellectual and practical skills for designing, making and evaluating products and for solving problems
• the knowledge and understanding brought to bear on the context of the problem, the details of the problem and the generation of a solution to the problem

and the capability to combine these skills and understandings in achieving successful end products or processes.

---

However, these statements of principle are too generalised to be of direct practical value to teachers who are responsible for devising their own coherent syllabuses and schemes of work.

This is where the expressed flexibility and individuality of the national curriculum is so important. It is up to teachers and schools to devise courses for progressive learning and attainment, bearing in mind that at key stage 4 pupils are expected to take part in projects that:

• are linked to their own interests, industrial practice and the community
• involve enterprise activity
• use ICT in computer-aided designing, manufacturing, control programs and in research.

In other words, teachers have a wonderful and exciting opportunity and, indeed, responsibility to select or devise their own syllabuses, schemes of work and assessment, which capitalises on their own personal interests, aptitudes, experiences and qualifications.

They know better than anyone else what it is that fires the enthusiasm of their students. They should have the confidence and inspiration to take the initiative in building up an ethos in their schools which will be understood by both staff and students and, moreover, the local community and potential employers.

However, teachers sometimes find it difficult to implement such independence due to uncertainty as to what is expected of them and the need to stimulate performances in their students that will count towards their school’s position in national league tables.

They sometimes feel that there may be a lack of consistency:

• in progression from one phase of education to the next
• between formal examinations and parallel curriculum activities such as national and local award schemes
• between academic and vocational courses;
• between the expectations of local employers and the more formal requirements for the curriculum
• between their own enthusiasm and expertise and the nationally formalised programmes of study, attainment targets and examination specifications, etc.

Teachers may find that some solid ground rules will help them to interpret the robust discipline of design and technology when developing personalised and individual courses in the face of these conflicting pressures.

The discipline comprises:

• intellectual and practical skills
• knowledge and understanding
• capability in combining these skills and understandings in achieving successful end results.

However, the whole field of design and technology is so vast that the possible interpretations of its discipline are virtually infinite.

Contexts

The practice of design and technology is valid whether it is in the field (or context) of musical instruments, jewellery, art, automata, flight, furniture, agriculture, industrial production, communications, science, domestic equipment, transport, health, sport or whatever! The only condition is that practitioners should become fully acquainted with the particular context and the requirements for what is being designed.

Sectors

Similarly, the sectors of knowledge and understanding that need to be called upon for arriving at design and technological solutions are equally valid whether they come from electronics, structures, mechanisms, control, materials processing, aerodynamics, ergonomics, etc. All such sectors of knowledge and understanding must be adequately underpinned by the fundamentals of mathematical and scientific methods and concepts.

Strategies

What is common across the range of design and technological activity are the intellectual strategies employed for recognising needs and opportunities, researching and investigating, developing ideas, solving problems, planning, ing, and handling and processing materials, etc.

Functions

What is also likely to be common to design and technology, regardless of context, or sector, are the functions to be performed by, or within, the finished product. Functions such as energy saving and transfer, propulsion, maintenance of stability and rigidity, control, communication, measurement etc., are likely to be required in any context.

In other words, the requirements for a course in design and technology can be met equally well through choices from many fields of human interest. This is what the national curriculum means by individuality, local ethos, creativity etc.

Concepts

Running through all aspects of the discipline of design and technology are many technological concepts that keep on emerging, regardless of the sector, function or context. Such concepts are what gives any chosen, and relatively narrow, course in design and technology its introductory role to the whole potential field of design and technology. Concepts are easily transferable from one field to another and should be taught as such.

Details of these dimensions of the discipline of design and technology may be explored on dedicated pages:

Contexts for designing and making
Strategies for designing and making
Functions in design and making
Sectors of knowledge and understanding
Concepts in design and technology

To look at how the discipline of design and technology is being managed in schools, go to:

Self-management of learning(primarily for students)
Management of learning
Management of the national curriculum for D&T

To consider the range of capabilities in design and technology, go to:

Capabilities in design and technology