National Curriculum

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, after that very helpful broad sweep I will focus only on design, because its importance has not been sufficiently realised. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his decision to broaden the measures for judging a school beyond English, maths and science to the pupil’s eight best subjects. This enlightened and far-seeing decision leaves room for design to become a subject of choice and for the fostering of centres of excellence, which will be much to our national advantage.

However, the curriculum that is proposed needs some rethinking. Many others think so, not least the 100 professors who wrote to the Daily Telegraph last Wednesday. They pointed out that the skills of problem-solving, critical understanding and creativity are losing out in the battle to raise standards. A proper design curriculum would go far to fill that gap. I should say at the outset that no one wants to lower standards, and that the Secretary of State’s attempt to entrench rigour is well understood. However, the whole of the design community, from practitioners to academics, is united behind wanting a more relevant—in fact, a more rigorous—syllabus. The Design Council has spoken of a “lost design generation” if this element of the curriculum is not brought up to a modern standard.

For a start, there are two syllabi that feature design: art and design, and design and technology. This is confusing. The idea of design in both syllabi falls far short of what design means now. In the art and design syllabus it seems to mean only the use of material and techniques for executing works of craft and art. The design and technology syllabus, too, concentrates on materials and includes cookery, mechanics, maintenance and horticulture. There is nothing about digital technology, one of our most promising design developments, and there is a perfunctory nod to our great national tradition of invention and design. It says that pupils should,

“investigate the rich history of design and technical innovation”.

I wonder what the pioneers and icons of that tradition, Sir Humphry Davy, Watt, Stephenson—or Sir Jonathan Ive—would have thought of their great expertise being exemplified by classes in maintenance and a balanced diet.

Why does this matter? Excellence in design is—at the moment—one of our great national strengths. We export more than £45 billion-worth of design-related goods and services to the EU alone and about £18 billion- worth to Asia and beyond, providing more than 900,000 jobs. Design-related goods and services make for about 4.5% of total UK exports. We have a truly world-class capability in design and it is highly export-facing. None of that will last if we impoverish the design curriculum in schools. It would also betray our historic prowess in innovation to forget, and allow our children to forget, that it was our great tradition of industrial and architectural design which created the economic basis for our place among developed nations and, I would argue, quite a lot of the social and cultural basis too.

How should design be taught? Good model syllabi have been presented to the Secretary of State by the Design Council and professional design organisations. To summarise: design is a problem-solving, multidisciplinary and collaborative process, which places the user’s needs at its centre. Of course it uses materials and techniques, but that is subordinate to developing the capacity to make an idea for solving a problem into a reality. It is a sound intellectual basis for many other capabilities and it fits its pupils to become active citizens and agents of change. Its relation to art is not the technical mastery that artists require to realise their vision, but rather it is the bridge between arts, science and technology, which enables the making of innovatory products and services. The hundred professors might have been talking about design when they concluded their letter by saying:

“Schools in high-achieving Finland and Massachusetts emphasise cognitive development, critical understanding and creativity”.

I urge the Minister to ensure that their message is listened to.