More work to do

We welcome Michael Gove’s recent announcement on GCSE reform and school accountability. We are pleased that the Secretary of State has changed his approach and that a two tier system between English Baccalaureate subjects and ‘creative’ subjects should now be avoided. This is a major breakthrough, and a victory for all those in our industry who campaigned to IncludeDesign. Of the 5,500 responses to the Government’s EBacc consultation, the majority were from the design and creative industries.

When we established the IncludeDesign campaign last November, we had two key ambitions:

• 1. Ensuring design and arts subjects were included in the core of young people’s education
• 2. Avoiding a two tier system where design and arts subjects were perceived to be second rate qualifications

We feel these two ambitions have broadly been achieved, but now have serious concerns about the quality of the proposed curricula for Design & Technology and Art & Design. In draft form, both curricula lack ambition, innovation and relevance to the needs of our globally respected design industry.

Signatories of the IncludeDesign campaign will campaign to improve the quality of these curricula by working with government, industry and professional groups.

Consultation Response

We need to act now (before the 16th of April) to halt the regressive proposal being put forward by the Department for Education for the Design & Technology and Art & Design curriculum. See what can you do