Design Education Research Programme

Whilst we recognise the national trend of decline of D&T in our own entries, we feel that it is time to go further in our understanding of the challenges facing D&T education, by speaking with stakeholders across the UK landscape, to help us to identify the specific pain points teachers, schools, students and industry are experiencing around the current GCSE and A level offer, and its relationship to vocational qualifications, new T Levels, and apprenticeships that will continue to shape this national picture.

We believe that by identifying problems for current and new teachers of the subject, involving school leaders, and working with higher education, we can work to stop the national decline in entries, and preserve the desire for schools to continue to offer design education pathways in their curriculum.

Read the 'Spotlight on Design and Technology report by the Education Policy Institute

You can also read our reaction to the report:

Pearson reaction to the “Spotlight on Design and Technology Study in England

We are working to raise our activity in design education, through surveys, visiting schools, working with active and forward thinking teachers, and speaking with education experts in this field, and we will be updating our progress on this work here.

Current surveys

What next?

We are asking you to do the following:

1. Save this page and keep coming back to see progress and contribute to the ongoing discussion
2. Contribute to our surveys which we will post here and across our communication channels
3. Reach out and get in touch if you feel you would like to add more to the conversation, by filling out this form.
4. Use the hashtag #teachdesign to help us track your conversations on social media and widen our reach
5. Sign up to our Teachmeet programme and host a network event at your school supported by Pearson (more to come on this)
6. Direct your D&T colleagues to this page, so they can do the same

We at Pearson believe students need a rich and diverse education, and design should be part of this offer to UK schools. We want you to #teachdesign.