Episode 7 - How to inspire kids into engineering at school with Tony Ryan

Mark McBride-Wright: 0:10

I am your host, Mark McBride-Wright, Founder and Managing Director of EqualEngineers, and I believe that every engineer has a story to tell. The Equalegineers podcast uncovers the diversity story behind leading engineers and those working with the profession, championing change. Hear from leaders, academics, entrepreneurs and agents of change, truly transforming the understanding of who engineers are and what engineers do. Tony Ryan is Chief Executive of the Design and Technology Association, an organisation supporting over 27,000 Teachers nationally. He joined the organisation in January 2018. Following a long career as a secondary teacher in two large London comprehensives. Tony entered teaching almost by accident, having crashed out of school fairly dramatically, and then refounding a love of learning through an apprenticeship route as a motor vehicle engineer. He trained in the last years of the inner London educational authority, and qualified initially as a teacher of design and technology, later taking on me an educational studies majoring in the use of information technology, and in the process of converting to a teacher and leader of information technology and computing. Tony has been a trustee of ASDAN, was on the education steering group for the Prince's Teaching Institute and as a fellow of the Royal Society of the arts. He is also a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and is currently on several educational steering groups working with the IDT and the Royal Academy of Engineering amongst others. Tony, hello, welcome. Delighted to have you on today. How are you?

Tony Ryan: 2:23

I'm very well thank you. Thanks so much for asking me. I'm delighted to be here.

Mark McBride-Wright: 2:27

So this morning, we have with us Tony Ryan, who is the Chief Executive of the Design and Technology Association. How are you doing today?

Tony Ryan: 2:41

I'm well I'm well, I'm well. Yeah, you've got the you've got the title right. Yeah, very grand title. But we'll dig more into the, into the job itself later on, I guess.

Mark McBride-Wright: 2:51

Absolutely. Absolutely. So the way the way I like structuring my podcasts here, is we like to get to know about about the person, the person behind the story. Because I'm a big believer that absolutely every single human being on this planet has got a diversity story to share something different, something unique perspective. And so by just getting to know people, the history where you grew up, but about yourself, and that can help us then understand your grounding and your context around how you do the work that you do now. So if we if we go back and look at your past, where did you grow up? And what was the young Tony like?

Tony Ryan: 3:36

It's really weird. I was I was at a football Saturday and we were talking about this. I was there with my brother and a few friends. And we were talking about the young Tony, which is sort of unrecognisable from the fella that you see in front of you today. Yeah, but that gives you that going too far back and giving you too much detail. I mean, I grew up in West London. My parents came over from Dublin in the 60s. So come from a big Irish background. All my family are over in Dublin or parts of Ireland. Still, as myself, my brother and my mom over here at the minute. West London was where my dad knew when he came over, so he sort of landed at the airport and then got the tube and then it was Hammersmith is where we were where we sort of knew so we jumped off at Hammersmith and and sort of grew up there. And I had a really fantastic upbringing. I mean, it was a lovely part of the world to to grow up in. I loved everything apart from school. School was the only thing, ironically, when you when when I you know if you look at you know, there's not many head teachers that look back, I guess and say they hated school. Yeah, but I did, but I did. So yeah, West London...

Mark McBride-Wright: 4:50

West London. I actually lived in West London for a little bit Hammersmith in Latimer court. It's a lovely area of London. In Brookgreen is really nice pub of Brookgreen, called the Prince of Wales pub.

Tony Ryan: 5:03

There's a few down there that I could see yeah.

Mark McBride-Wright: 5:06

So when you see that are a few head teachers that wouldn't look back fondly on their school days then and didn't enjoy it, how? How would you describe your your school days?

Tony Ryan: 5:16

They started but I mean, I guess I can remember being told at a very young age because I was I was a tall kid, and like, you know, bigger than the other kids around me. And God bless my parents. They said, like, you know, whatever you do, you don't you don't hit them, you don't push them, you don't shove them, you just behave yourself. But from the age of six, I was mercilessly bullied at school. And like, I was describing it to my son at the weekend. He's 26, pushing 27. And he said, it's the first time you've ever told me that story is not something that I recount regularly. But I remember being in the playground at six years old with about 12 kids, pushing my face into the sandpit. And I was big enough to fight back. And I was big enough to do something about that. But I'd been told not to. So I didn't. And it just got worse and worse and worse to the point that eventually I had to, I had to change schools. So that started bad. I must admit my second primary school was wonderful, I loved it. But then secondary school my parents did what they thought was the right thing was they sent me a couple of bus trips away to a Catholic school. Not too far, not too far away. But a couple of bus rides. It was far enough all my mates went to the local secondary, which is where I ended up as Head Teacher eventually you know, ironically. And yeah, I just, they never connected with me as teachers, you know, you if you were good at sport, then you were known and you were looked after, if you are academically very, very bright, you were known and looked after. But if you didn't fall into those two categories at the time, then actually you were just the surname Ryan or boy was what I was described right away through school. And the older I got the more angsty, I got to that to the point that, you know, finally, I left school just a wee bit early. And that was that was just, you know, to everybody's liking, really the teachers that aren't enough for me. I don't know if I'd had enough of school. And I ended up I mean, this is this is the the ironic bit really, I had a careers interview. And I remember this was year 10. No, it was it was fourth year as it was then. And the careers teacher said to me, You know what you want to be and I like from nowhere I said car mechanic and I don't I haven't got a clue where that came from. Now pluck that from the sky. And I said, What do I need to do to be a car mechanic, she said, Well, you need maths, you need English, and you need one other now I'm convinced if she just said six, or seven or more at that stage, I would have got six or seven or more. She said three. So I've got three. And, and I became a car mechanic and 16 and all the maths, all the science that made no sense whatsoever when I was at school, or a physics that made no sense whatsoever. When you put an engine in front of me and you gave me a purpose, it all clicked in place. And at 16. For the first time ever, I realised I wasn't quite as thick as school made me feel. So that was the chip on my shoulder. And it's still there now, but it's a healthy chip.

Mark McBride-Wright: 8:25

That's interesting, isn't it, like in your adolescent teenage years, as a young male, you're just sort of Finding your Feet in the world and hormones are everywhere. And there's so much anger that can sometimes arise when if you're not guided during the right pathway. So to find something at 16, and then reach that sort of level of realisation is was must have been a really good thing for you to have found a context within which you could thrive and feel valued and feel feel like you'd found a purpose.

Tony Ryan: 8:59

Yeah, scholars scholars shattered my confidence, really, in my academic ability. And yeah, to find that it all made sense was was something of a relief. But also it was really nice to find that, you know, you could do this and you could do it at a decent level as well. So, yeah, I mean, I've grabbed every qualification that there was, I mean, I worked my way through to management level within the motor industry. And it was just like, whatever qualification was there, it's like, I'll have that I took a year where I didn't have any holidays for a year, I took one day a week of my holiday in order to go to college. And in order to get it that was the only way that I could manage it. And I just wanted to learn and then I just looked around I think about five six years in as a mechanic and still enjoying it, but I had a look around the workshop and the guys that I thought were old. They were probably only early 40s. They looked knackered. They looked absolutely worn out and you know, and I just looked at them and I thought you I don't know, if I want to do this for the rest of my life. I need to find something else. And instead of there needs to be something else out there that can challenge me. And also I had gotten to a point where the leadership in in the garage, told me if you get this qualification, we'll put you on a management programme. Okay, I've got the qualification. And then they said to me, oh, no, you need to give it another two or three years because you too valuable to us on the shop floor. And it was like, I'm not gonna wait another two or three years or so now. But it was it was a fluke, I was on my way home and the tube covered in oil one night. And I just picked up the Evening Standard. And there was an advert in there saying, Have you thought of teaching and it was the inner London education authority as it was at the time were sponsoring people. So I thought was a way of getting a degree. And I can do that I can get a salary because you sort of get used to having a car and a salary when you got a job. And I could get my way into get a degree and then the thought was get the degree and then jump out of education back into the motor industry. Okay, but first time that I stood in front of a class of kids was at a school in Greenwich quite a quite a difficult school in Greenwich. I taught a lesson for an hour, I wasn't supposed to, there was a guy supposed to sit at the back of the room and supervise me. But after five minutes, he found other things to do and disappeared, and left me with a Class A year 10s. And it was a longest hour of my life. It was it was but at the end of it, a student on their way out the door thanked me. And I actually thought, you know, what? A summit in it. So I knew I wasn't going back to the motor industry there. In that moment. I knew that that teaching was where I'd found my place.

Mark McBride-Wright: 11:41

And isn't amazing. So what I was going to ask you what, what have been some of the key experiences who have shaped who you are? And it sounds like that might have been one of them?

Tony Ryan: 11:51

Yeah, I mean, that was a moment definitely where I realised that this was a hard job. But But I found I had a connection with the students. And you know, it wasn't their friend. Actually, any teacher that goes in there trying to be everybody's friend isn't he's on a hiding to nothing. Yeah. But there was a connection now. And I've always found through my teaching career that it was actually some of the most difficult kids were the ones that I found it easier to connect with. I think I mean, some of the key experiences really, I mean, my parents came over from Ireland with no money. And there was a value set that they instilled in me, which was about hard work. And, you know, my dad ran pubs. He was out first thing in the morning, he wasn't back until 1112 o'clock or later, he worked flat out my mum worked three, four jobs, sometimes in order to bring money in. And you think back in, you look at it. And you just think well, actually, that was just the norm as far as we were concerned growing up, and both myself and my brother were brothers in the construction industry. And we both just worked really hard at whatever we do. And I think those values are really, really important. Also, I saw it was at a time where being from an Irish background and living in London was difficult. I remember my dad, describing to me trying to get somewhere to stay before my mum came over from Ireland. And there were signs on rental properties saying no blacks, dogs, or Irish, were seems just unbelievable now. But that sort of racism was rife. And it was really, really difficult to grow up with that. So I'm sort of driven by a set of values that are around equality and around people and it's never been about cash. It's never been about you know, how much money can I make this? It's always been about how much difference can I make and and what can I do, which sounds a bit corny, but yeah, it's driven me.

Mark McBride-Wright: 13:49

So in that pursuit of that greater goal, it it takes a lot of energy to focus in on that and achieve that and we all need our respite and our releases. So what what do you do? What pastimes Do you enjoy?

Tony Ryan: 14:05

It's always been football for me. I mean, it's always been sports, full stop. I mean, my dad loved sport, he would watch anything, you would go and watch rather than partake, but I started playing football. I was never brilliant, but I worked. It was a little bit late, but it was built up a lot. My career I worked hard. So I was sent to midfield for quite a number of years and I played every Saturday. And then when I got a little bit older, I moved backwards a little bit to centre half and ended up playing 30 years for the same club. So every Saturday was it was a game of football and I've got a group of mates from that that I still hang around with now and it was just that was my release. It was lovely to be teachers are wonderful. But teachers take themselves very seriously sometimes and I'll include myself in that. Okay. And it was just lovely to play football with electricians Lama's a lawyer at one stage a couple of business owners, there was a real mix there. Got Yeah. And we didn't talk about work. We just talked about other stuff and it was just lovely to be able to switch off. So yeah, I played until the age of 48. And then the knees started giving up. Always supported Brentford so we're Brentford season ticket holder now, so I just with my boys now we travel all over the country. And it's Premier League, so it's never been better. Oh, wow.

Mark McBride-Wright: 15:27

Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, the football gene didn't quite take on for me, that's, that's my dad and my brother in their connection. But I have been to the odd game in the past. And actually, it's an area that I'm really interested as a diversity inclusion specialist, seeing how the quality is playing out in the game playing out in football. And one thing that's always that's really striking to me more recently than ever, because, as equal engineers, we formed some partnerships with some big motorsport organisations, McLaren racing, being the main one, the ability for sport, to change hearts and minds or to influence it just cuts through everything, no matter your background, your age, or discipline, what you do, where you come from. It's something that people like, really passionate about, you know, when you get the right cord, and so it's potential to be a conduit for transformational societal change is something that just hasn't even been touched on. I think I think and given the groups that you work with it school, that school sport is quite a unifying force as well. Do you see any untapped potential leverage in sport with the upcoming generation? Learn in the Edna piece?

Tony Ryan: 16:54

Absolutely. I mean, I, you know, I'm slightly biassed, because I've supported Brentford since the age of four, but it's a proper community club. And in recent years, it's really worked hard to make itself at the centre of that community. And that involves, involves everything it involves, it involves getting out there into schools, it involves the messaging that comes out, the way the players involve themselves in the local community, to the point, even down to the sort of songs that are sung at the ground, you know, I mean, some of the songs that have been sung at Brands over the years have been anything but diverse. And, and, you know, it's just not tolerated anymore. It's just not accepted anymore. And there is a big change, you're right. And if you can change it in the ground with 17,000 people, then you hope that that's gonna ricochet out from there to other areas. And it's just the equality. I mean, the number of the number of women that you see at games at Brentford now, these days is dramatically increased. I mean, I remember going as a kid, and it was mostly men and boys that were there. But also, you know, where it is in Hounslow, we're on the edge of Hounslow is a very, very diverse area, but the ground wasn't years ago, but it is more so now. And I think, I think there's a feeling that it's more inclusive, that the football is more inclusive, it's not, it's not a done deal, there's still, you still see an awful lot of moments where it's like going back to 1960 buttons, do you see less you see less of them?

Mark McBride-Wright: 18:26

Do you think we'll get to a point where there is like self regulation within the crowd, because that's what it's gonna take for it to happen. The more men are sort of sparked off homophobia are racially driven, you know, statements are made the actually the crowd doesn't then propagate and it's sort of it's quenched from within so to speak.

Tony Ryan: 18:48

It needs to it needs to do that it needs to do that. I mean, you know, there's an awful I listened to, there's a there's a fanzine podcast, besotted.com. And Billy that's from that is happens to be a black supporter tell some really, really difficult stories about when he was younger, and being the only black face in a white ground, basically, and the racism that he experienced. And the only way that I feel that, that it will change is if you do challenge it. I mean, if you stay quiet, if you hear it behind you and you stay quiet, then you're basically complicit in that you've got you've got to turn around and challenge it. And that's difficult. You know, it's difficult because you don't know what you're going to meet you don't know whether somebody's going to meet you with aggression with that or not. But yeah, I see it more and more now where and even myself, you know, those years ago, maybe I would have let it go. I'm ashamed to admit but now I won't let it go. Now. It's like no, that's that's not on. That's just not acceptable. And normally, you can explain to somebody why and normally they will agree normally they will back down quietly, every now and again. You'll get you'll get a head coach that wants to push it. But I think it's right that yes, it will self regulate over time. It's getting better. So there's still a way to go.

Mark McBride-Wright: 20:02

Yeah, no, that's really encouraging to hear. So moving on to the present then, and looking at the role that you're doing now, in the last four years, you've been chief executive of the Design and Technology Association. So can you tell us a bit more about that? What does it involve?

Tony Ryan: 20:22

Yeah, I try and try and take you through the journey. I mean, I, I left headship, for all sorts of reasons. The main one was because running the type of school that I wanted to run, which was a school that was centred on the needs of the students not centred on the needs of the sort of established system. You had to do both. And, and it was becoming harder and harder to run the sort of school that I wanted. So I thought, Nah, I'm done with this. I did a year self employed, which was wonderful. You know, for the first time in 33 years, at the time, I thought, my day wasn't dictated by bells, which was wonderful. I could go to the toilet whenever I wanted, which was just a dream. And then and then an agency came calling and said, Look, you know, the Design Technology Association are looking for a chief exec, would you would you be interested? And it was like, No, I'm not. I'm I'm alright, as I am. Thank you, Lee. I'm enjoying life, leave me alone. And then a few weeks later, they came back again and said, Look, you know, would you just take a look at the GED. And I knew, because it was the subject that brought me into teaching, I knew that if I looked at the job descriptor I was in. So I was like, well, you can send it to me, but I don't know. And I actually left it on open for a while. And in one day, I opened it up, I thought, I'll just have a look. And I'll dismiss it. And then four years later, here I am. And it is it's a subject that is very dear to me. It's not. I believe it's got solutions to many of the problems that we're experiencing at the moment. Or, you know, and, and I think much of that is around context, you know, and if I go back to my own experience, and a chip on my shoulder, nobody told me why I was learning what I was learning at school, it was like, the only reason I was given was there was an examination at the end of it, and it was never enough for me at 14. And it probably isn't enough for me now. If I'm honest, I need to know why I need to know what what where it's leading to where it could take me and why it's exciting. You know, why am I learning maths? What the heck is Pythagoras theorem got to do with anything. Just explain it to me. And I think that context is really, really important. So when I took over at the association, there were a number of things that we were focused predominantly on servicing the needs of teachers, and that was, at the time around 9300 teachers in the UK. And that wasn't enough for a start where I felt we needed to, we needed to actually have a bigger teacher base to work with. And we were providing resources and and resources. Teachers are pretty self reliant animals, you know, we, we create our own and we share, we're open as well. So if somebody needs something, I've done it, then there's no point in somebody doing it again, I'll share it with you. And then again, and any good teacher very rarely picks up something off the shelf and uses it as it is we we tinker with it, and we make it ours. So resources, were never going to be the future as far as I can see. So we set about increasing the membership base, we've we've now got over 27,000 members teaching members. So that's that's improved dramatically. We set about we set up a system to connect schools and what was going on in schools with business and industry, which we call blueprint 1000s. If I'm really, really honest, we wanted to call it blueprint that somebody else had already grabbed that. So we've got the corny idea of like, we want to connect 1000 businesses and schools over the course of four years. So hence, blueprint 1000s. And what we're trying to do there is we're trying to work schools in a Tory sleep difficult places to contact, yes. And a lot of companies over the years have told me that they really want to work with education, but they found it almost impossible. So what we are is we're the sort of with a join in between those two. So we find companies that have got fantastic things going on, that wants to connect with education. And then we approached schools and we say to the schools, okay, we've got this company that's doing amazing stuff up the road. Have you got a group of students in DNC that we could work with, and that sometimes why didn't DNC sometimes it's in math, sometimes it's in science, wherever it might be? And then we connect the two up, we join the two up and we've got we've got over 30 Blueprint members now and we're working with them on individual projects and They're all motivated by something slightly different. Some of them it's a diversity angle that they realise they need more diversity in the sector, and they want to get more in some of them. It's it's, it's the fact that they're looking at talent acquisition, they want to connect with some kids that are really motivated by what they're doing. And it's interesting, because a lot of things are coming up over and over again, the theme of sustainability, you know, I think kids out there realise that we're in a mess. And, and they want to be part of the solution, not a further part of the problem. And any company that can give them a foot into that, that being part of the solution, interest them. And like, a lot of companies that we work with, they think that students are motivated by money, which they're not really they're motivated by making a difference. So those things are joining up. And then the last thing that we do really is Dean t is in all sorts of trouble nationally. You know, we haven't got enough teachers, and therefore, subject specialisms doesn't matter how good the subject is, as a head teacher, if you can't find a good middle leader, you'll drop the subject. And we're struggling with that in some schools around the country where head teachers have looked for the right leadership for the subjects and haven't been able to find it. We're also suffering that it's an expensive subject, when you compare it with the likes of English. We've got material use, we've got machines, we've got health and safety. So therefore there's a cost to it. And when school budgets are being cut, it's an easy cut in some schools. And because of all of that, and also, there's the back in there, which is the government's little group of preferred subjects that the open doors. And we're not any back. And as a result of that, school, some schools are dropping us for that reason. So the last part of our purposes and association is to lobby for the subjects and to lobby for the disciplines within the subjects. You know, I think people can't argue with the fact that, you know, we need problem solvers, we need lateral thinkers, we need people that can hit a problem, and not see it as terminal, but can see, you know, our failure isn't a destination, it's a point along the way, and kids that know how to fail, know how to fall over and know how to get back up again, yeah, are really what we excel at, within designer technology. So it's trying to make a case for the subject moving forwards. In order to try to prepare the workforce for the future in the society of the future, I think it's more than workforce, you know, if I, if I'm 13 years old, and I give up the ante, because I don't choose it as an option, then that's fine. But at the very least, I should be as a really, really picky consumer. And if that's the, if that's the worst that comes out of the subject, I can live with that. At the other end, we're turning out the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and problem solvers. So it's yes, a subject that I really care about.

Mark McBride-Wright: 28:10

You see there being a gender divide still within the subject at school level with regard to boys and girls.

Tony Ryan: 28:21

That's really interesting, because the subject is struggling in the mainstream sector. Right. It's not struggling in the private sector, in the private sector, actually, it's going the other way it's growing. And some of the diversity issues with girls that you see in the mainstream you do not see in private Ed. Now that, you know, part of the reason for that, I think maybe it's because a lot of parents in private education have maybe made their money out of design out of engineering and manufacturing, whatever it might be, and therefore get it understand it. And it's not a nice to have in private education. It's you know, if you're paying 25 30,000 pounds a year for education, this is this is on my list of must haves, yes, not nice to have. So there is a sort of split there. And it also very much depends on the nature of the school and on the work they're doing. And within that school, you know, if it's designed, focused, and it's about empathy as a designer, and it's about getting inside somebody else's heads and seeing a problem from their perspective, then actually, you're more likely to attract girls to the subject, than if you're just making stuff. I'm not downgrading, making stuff making stuff is part of what we do, and it's part of what makes the subjects but that sort of empathy and that journey, that empathetic journey that you have to take through iterative design. That opens it up to both genders. And schools that do that well. tend to have no gender divide. I'd say it's basically boys and girls look at it and go, Yeah, that's for me, I can see why that would that would be valuable.

Mark McBride-Wright: 30:08

That's a really interesting point around the empathetic journey of iterative design. Some of the work we've been doing has been looking at this concept of systematic inclusion, whereby a lot of engineering, when we do talk about diversity and design, it's focused on the end user, and the process of getting your service and product to being suitable for our wider array of end users. But actually, the process through getting there embedding baking in inclusion, diversity through the design process itself is really important because it then influences what that end product is, but also, the experience of the the technicians, the engineers, the designers going through it. And more often, what we're seeing now is a wider consideration of accessibility. So when our sort of standard project that the association might support a school with or that a school might run with, what are the what is the sort of mix of of study in design and tech these days,

Tony Ryan: 31:14

It has changed dramatically in the last four or five years, four or five years ago, if I was a teacher with woodwork as my specialism that was timbers were where I was comfortable. I could get a whole GCSE group to make a piece of furniture that was for a notional end user. And it was going to go into a lounge at home or study at home or whatever it might be. And I'd end up with, let's say, 25 different pieces of furniture at the end of the course, there would be folders that would there would look bit of research in there, little bit of user interface on that. And then they would create a nice piece of end kit at the end of it. It's now about, it's about the making, but it's also about the journey. So whereas you would have got that very much in focus is where everything is what am I going to make? It's now where is the problem. And so exactly awarding organisations where they used to give you a defined problem, they will now quite often just give you one word. And that word, for example, was sustainability. Last year, there was just one word. And then as a student, you've got to work out, okay, what does that mean to me, I've got to find a problem out there that actually encapsulates that word somewhere along the line. So I've got to find a sustainability problem somewhere out there, I've got to find somebody that is struggling around that area, I've got to define what the problem is. And then I've got to come up with not necessarily an end product, but definitely a prototype or a series of prototypes, which seek to solve the problem that I've identified. Now, that's an that's a hell of a lot harder than making a coffee table. Definitely is and, and, you know, you're asking 14 1516 year olds to actually work as in in the same manner that professional designers will work. Yeah. And, and what we're getting out of that is we're getting students that really do understand the iterative process, they really get it. And what we're hearing from universities thereafter, as you can tell a kid that's got design and technology in their background, because they approach problems differently. They approach it not from a knowledge base only. But they approach it from all sorts of different places, they're quite happy to put their hands on a load of scraps and bits and pieces and start to knock a model together as a potential solution as a starting point. Rather than going to CAD straight away and thinking I'm going to draw something, I'm going to put something up there. So when it's taught well. It's about it's about mission, it's about purpose, it's about drive, it's about passion. And it's about connection. And those sorts of personal traits are just as important as the skills, the processes, the materials, knowledge that you need, all the other bits and pieces, the whole lot goes into a whole package. So not easy to teach. So you know, when anybody shows it's not academic, as you know, you can see why I get a bit peeved,

Mark McBride-Wright: 34:23

Yeah, I've totally and actually think there's a bit of repackaging that needs to go on to sort of educate on the benefits of it. Not being a dying star, so to speak in the array of considerations that either schools look at to put on for their students, or that universities shortlist from when looking at candidate applications for for degree courses. I mean, we've got T levels coming up soon. So how be enrolled out where does wearable design and tech fit into that new education pathway for for pupils?

Tony Ryan: 35:03

That's a really good question. I mean, I was around when diplomas were rolling rolled out. And I had concerns about the diploma. And I wouldn't offer it in my school for a number of reasons. And the main reason was, I couldn't see why students and parents would select it over a levels. Because the a level is tried, it's tested, it's established. And also, if you do three A levels, and one of them proves really difficult, or you don't connect with it, or whatever you still come out with to a levels. My concern with T levels is on a few levels. First of all, I worry that, you know, it's a whole package, and you have to complete the whole package to get an award at the end of it. So if you struggle partway along, you come out with nothing. And that really, really worries me. Because I think students will struggle, because it's not easy. If you look at the content that are in the T levels, they're on a par content wise, with the a level, it's there's not much difference there. The other bit that worries me a little bit is about the parity in parents eyes, you know, parents are very traditional creatures, and will fall back on what they experienced the what they know. And why would a parent push their son or daughter to do a T level. And I think my last concern really is that some of the T levels that are coming out, all the specs are in place, and they're about to come out. If you've done design and technology a level in a way that I've just described, and then you go into a manufacturing T level, you're going to be bored. Because there's none of that design in there is none of that empathy. There's none of that connection with a client. It's all about processes and machines and tools. And, and yeah, they're important. But But actually, if your head is all around making a difference and and working with people, you're going to be sorely disappointed. And that's before we get to the back that, you know a lot of employers are still saying and have been saying right away through. We can either do apprenticeships or we can do T levels with regards to the placement on site. We can't We can't manage both. So that I fear there's a lot of things stacked against them. It worries me

Mark McBride-Wright: 37:27

Yeah, I guess we'll just have to wait and see

Tony Ryan: 37:32

The last bit. Just just mentioning, Mark, just very quickly. The other bit that worries me as well is you can't have a knowledge based curriculum up till the age of 16. And then suddenly turn on vocational and technical learning. It's got to come down. And you've got to show students that using your hands along with your head. And your heart actually is some way of learning that is important. And you can't just switch that on at 16. So that's the other concern that I've got.

Mark McBride-Wright: 38:00

It's purely knowledge and understanding, then no, I completely get that. I mean, I did do. I didn't take design and tech as a formal subject. But I do remember my days working and doing graphic communication during rendering. I think we had to make a cheese game a candlestick holder, and a little toy that you turned into bits bobbed up in there. And that was how we practised our woodwork. And now went off and did engineering at uni, but was when I started my PhD, they had a really strong design element to the very beginning that required me to design, procure and manufacture and test my own bit of kit. I remember being in the workshop at Imperial because we had our own in house workshop with leafs and CNC tools and what have you, and thinking and also I was doing a bit of engineering that used some physics and I had didn't do physics to any advanced level. I remember thinking how ironic I've gone through and done a chemical engineering undergrad degree, I'm now doing a PhD. But um, I am genuinely thinking back to my high school design and tech for getting through this. You know this this time in the workshop. I remember Tony, Tony the workshop lead he was so patient with me. But I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed getting my hands dirty again, I don't know if that's not probably the right expression, but just being back doing practical work. It made me reflect and think back to had I had more options. And also had there not been this gender bias that I referred to earlier. Because coming back to culture at school, I didn't actually like the groups that were traditionally go on and do design and tech it put me off it. There were people I was trying to avoid for my own reasons at school. So that, you know, that was probably a filter point actually never made the subject, you know, preceding the subject. It was the social context. So I hope I hope that there is some diversification happening in terms of student interest, that then means that more people are pulled towards one wanting to study it. And I think that's fascinating what you said about the reverse trend in the in the private sector versus the state sector. I remember going and looking at some some private schools and seeing that they had their own design and tech room, you know, they had their own teacher. So for it to be taught as a subject from when you're age five or six, you know, when you first move into school versus experiencing it for the first time, when you get to secondary school, that must have unquestionably some outcome on a student's affinity for for wanting to do it further.

Tony Ryan: 40:51

It does, it doesn't I mean, you know, quite a quite a bleak picture. But I mean, there's two things that I'd want to say first of all, is our primary membership is increasing exponentially at the moment, which is fantastic, half amazing. And that's, we're going from, I mean, we've gone from a couple of years ago, but three and a half 1000. Members, we got about 23,000 members at primary now. And that's Ofsted driven. You know, Ofsted have said they want a broad and rich curriculum. And that broadness and that richness includes design and technology. A lot of primary teachers are realising that you that the multidisciplinary nature of our subject is you can teach science to DNC, you can teach, you can teach English, you can teach geography. And it's a great vehicle for providing context for all of those things. So they're getting, the other thing I would say is, there is some great practice out there in mainstream secondary as well, I don't want to paint mainstream as being the poor relation to private, though there are some fantastic teachers out there that have done the exact opposite of what you said, you know, the traditional de vente workshop was full of boys that were pretty badly behaved, that the school leadership had pushed in there. Because if they're making something there'll be quiet, and they won't annoy anybody. And you can change that culture in a school very quickly. And many schools have completely turned that around, and made it a place that people want to be, you know, it's that curiosity established out, you know, that question why that we're all born with, you just want to keep that in kids as long as possible. You want you want to ask him why, you know, you always used to love that in lessons when a kid you know, you'd get three minutes in, and in a way, it's a pain in the backside, because you you've got your whole lesson planned out, you know, where you go in and you three minutes in and somebody says, Can I just ask why? And it's like, oh, no, I've got to answer that we've got. It's gonna take me. But you never want to stop that. Because as soon as they stop asking why they're bored.

Mark McBride-Wright: 42:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, you've still got them on a hook, you've got their interest, their personal commitment to pay attention and learn. So how is the association supporting the engagement of young people in engineering and technology?

Tony Ryan: 43:10

I think the main tool that we've got for that is blueprint. And what we're doing through that is we're doing, for example, I think you have to, you have to see what you can be sometimes. And that's not an old boy, like me going into school saying, You know what, you could do this, you could do that, that somebody just a few years older than you are that is taken that path and taking that journey. And I think that's really, really important. So we're doing lots and lots of videos at the moment of people either in apprenticeships at the moment, or just finished a degree maybe, and just working in a in a company making something designing something, whatever it might be. And they just, they're very short videos, they're about five to six minutes long. But this person just talks through their journey. And what's interesting is very few people have had a linear path to where they are now, quite often, there's been ups and downs along the way. And I think that's really healthy for a 1514 year old to hear is, you know, when you're 14, you think I'm going to design this slide where I'm going to be career wise, when I'm 40 now, and then I'm just going to do that. And that's the way it's going to be no, nobody does that it's up and down, you're gonna have 10 or 12 jobs, you're going to constantly learn things are going to change. And the more we can show that that's the norm. I think the more pressure we take off kids to to want to be something above everything else. And so have an open mind about what they're going to do as well. So videos are one way and the other way is actually demonstrating what's going on out there. I mean, we're working with a company at the moment that are putting little hydro electric trains underground, that will run parcels from one city to another and take them off the road and they'll do it in a carbon free way. Now, I didn't know that that was occurring until we started working with this car. Knee. But if we can show that to schools, and we can actually demonstrate how it works, and we can show that it has got the potential to take 50% of the artic vehicles off our road. That's gonna make people think differently in schools that young people think differently about the sort of jobs they might aspire to, you know, there's 10 million jobs going to come up in the next few years, which are going to be in green sectors. I mean, we should be teaching that at school. So students can say, well, I want to I want one of those 10 million to be me.

Mark McBride-Wright: 45:31

Yeah, no, absolutely. And how just on that, then how can So you mentioned a target of 1000. And you're at 30? Members just know your blueprint programme? So can you just give us an idea of the scale of company size? Can it be a small medium enterprises getting involved all the way up to a big one? And what what, if any, our listeners are interested? What should they do to find out more?

Tony Ryan: 45:54

Large scale, we have multinational companies who have joined us and have said, Okay, we don't struggle to recruit, because of who we are, we always get 1000s of applicants for every job sometimes. But we realised that we're lucky and in the sector that we're in, that isn't always the case. And actually, the diversity perhaps in our sector is not where it should be. So we want to get into schools that perhaps wouldn't normally engage with us. We're also working with from from from asset at one, one end of the scale, to the other end of the scale, we're working with startups that are only three years in. And what they want to do is just connect with some schools locally, because they feel that they're very excited about what they're doing the work that they're doing. And they want to show that to young children in order, like primary and secondary, really, in order to do what I said earlier, which is just just inspire them to want to work in engineering and in a sector that perhaps they would dismiss otherwise. We've got some that are on talent acquisition, that you know, they really struggle to get the right sort of student they get loads of applicants, but not loads have the right type of applicant and the right type of applicant for there might be somebody that perhaps hasn't got straight A's at school has got, you know, is struggled a little bit, but actually is really motivated to work in a particular sector. So therefore, he's going to work that little bit harder. And some of the employers are changing their recruitment methodologies as well, because they're realising that traditionally, they only looked at the grey kids, and that they're missing out on a certain type of student if they don't look lower. But then they want to know, how do we do that? How do we open up our recruitment? How do we work with schools in a better way, one of the best things we did which which is really important is it's something that called teachers in residence, because I think, without, without slighting geography, teachers, because I love geography, teachers. If you're teaching geography, you probably can go from school to university, do your degree and then back into school. And you're probably going to be doing geography stuff outside of school, it's because it interests you. And because it's a passion. But if you've not got any professional training or experience in that field, it's not really going to hit you as a teacher. But in our field, if you've never been in business, you've never been in industry, you've never been in engineering, you've never been in manufacturing, or design or whatever it might be. Eventually, a student's going to say, Miss what's it like to be in design, and you've only got what you've read in a book, or magazine or whatever. So we're taking teachers from school, and we're giving them short internships. And we did this with, we did this one recently, which was a big design agency in London. And we put a teacher three days of our half term in this design agency. And the brief for the agency was move this teacher through as many jobs as possible. Don't have them watching. No, have them working, get them get them to work. They are they are design equipped. So get them in there designing stuff and tell them what you're doing and why you're doing it. And I saw the tweet from a teacher when she went back to school on her first day after half term. And she said, picture of her classroom. And she said, this is the first day that the students come into a design studio and not a classroom. And I just I've saved that. And I just thought this, this is what we're trying to do with China. We're trying to show teachers how they can link up and how relevant what they're doing in school is what's going on out there in business and industry. So your blueprint will join everything up there and it works for all levels.

Mark McBride-Wright: 49:39

That's that is I think that was one of the things that when we had our first chat really resonated with me in terms of their alignment with the work that we're trying to do EqualEngineers with widening participation, getting more schools along their careers fairs, getting school getting the school kids that have been I totally know what you mean about goal is to get in touch with schools, I remember for our 20 pre pandemic, so 2019 careers fairs. I specifically targeted special educational needs and or disabilities schools. And out of all the outreach that we did only one school came to one event, most of the outreach that we did, we just got pushed back after pushback after pushback, because the receptionist was making the decision that it wasn't relevant for their students, or that their students, their pupils couldn't be engineers or technicians. And it was that sort of sifting out that really frustrated me that really, really frustrated me. So for this year, for 2021, we did a more concerted effort for the events that we ran, and we saw an increase in the number of schools coming along from from those backgrounds. So do you have any experience in working with very targeted schools or schools from a particular demographic? And our Do you see a difference in their engagement? Compared to, you know, a regular mainstream school?

Tony Ryan: 51:04

We do. I mean, the process of signing up a blueprint member, I think is quite, it's quite important to explain, I'll do it very quickly is that you know, there's an initial discussion, first of all, why do you want to connect with schools, what's in it for you. And generally, they'll have one or two ideas, but they won't know much about other than when they were students themselves. So there might be a couple of things. So we can we can get a list of these are the things that we've done already with different companies, which one of those or which combination of those actually flips your switch? And they'll pick two or three out? We then send them a questionnaire through and say, Okay, what does success look for you look like to you, after 12 months, you know, tell us who's going to lead this for you, because somebody within your company will have to lead it. And liaise with us, will connect you with schools, how many schools you want to be connected with now, if I'll give you an example, there was one design agency that wanted to work. And they said, Look, you know, we do quite well, on gender split, we're about 5050. But actually, there's only one black face in the entire building, and there's 80 employees. And that's just not good enough. So we need to do something about that. The problem is, we need to get into schools that are a little bit more diverse, because the design sector feeds from private education. And actually, it's a self fulfilling prophecy that most of those are middle class whites. So therefore, we have this issue going through, we need to break out of that we need you to get us into schools locally, they gave us a 10 mile radius, they said work on a 10 mile radius. Now they're in the centre of London, we did a 10 mile radius. It was over 500 schools. So we said okay, well, now that down to 15, for you that we know where we know, you'll get diversity, we'll know you get traction. And what they were offering what they are offering is amazing, they're actually offering a paid internship. And they want that to go to a student who otherwise would not go into design and would not probably go to university. Now at the end of that 12 months paid internship, they're hoping that they will have seen and experienced enough to make them want to go into design. But if they don't, they can walk away, they've learned from that and they can then go and do something else. And so that working with them, we are getting them into the right schools, we're connecting them with the right students, and and hopefully, these internships will fill with the kids that they want to select, basically.

Mark McBride-Wright: 53:28

Fantastic. And that just goes to the old adage that, you know, talent is everywhere, and equal distribution. And actually, if you're just not seeing that reflected, and who comes to you, then it's because you're being lazy, or too narrow in terms of your strategy and what you're doing. So I I really do hope that that helps. Yeah, yield some useful benefits for the, for the organisations taking part. Just before we before we finish up what you went back to, like design and tech, and then never not thinking that you'd come back to a career in teaching, then going to teaching and know doing what you're doing now. If there, what would you say to people out there who are who've maybe thought about being a teacher but have been sitting on the fence or not quite wanting to dip their toe yet in that in that pool? What it is a profession that is you see the adverts from, you know from the government all the time on TV, there's a big campaign going on right now, I think. What would you say to anyone out there who's questioned whether our career in teaching is for them?

Tony Ryan: 54:42

This is a very personal question, because it's my son's just 27. And he's tried a number of different things since he left university and none of them have really turned him on at all. And at the He, probably about six months ago, he turned around to me and he said, You know what I fought against it. He said, Because I didn't want to be a teacher, because you're a teacher, I didn't want to just follow the same route. In fact, I wouldn't do anything other than teaching because of what you did. Because when you when you're at home, when a teacher, you do see both sides of it, you see the beauty of it. And like sometimes I used to slip through the door at night, and had a great day, the kids were fantastic, the relationships were good. I taught a good lesson, which always gave me a buzz. And then they see the other side of it as well, where you're marking books on a Sunday, and you want to go out and you've got all this pile of books that you've got to mark. And it's just got to be done. And they see that side as well. So for him to turn around and say that I think I'm gonna go into teacher training. It had to be his idea. And it was interesting. I was at football with him at the weekend and right, he's on his first placement. He's doing primary. And he's on his first placement. And it's in a tricky school at the moment. He's not finding it easy. But he said, You know what, I think I found it. I think I've found that passion driver that's got me. He said, I'm loving every minute. And they said to me, he said, I want to answer me one question is, and this is these students that he's been with three weeks, he said, I thought they were an absolute pain in the backside. When I first started working with him, he said, because they wouldn't listen to me. And they were ignoring me. And this was going on and that's going on. He said, I've got a six week placement, I'm going to have to leave these guys. He said, I'm creating an emotional attachment to them already. I don't want to leave them. You know, and I remember our head teacher said to me once that always happen. But there will always be another group of kids that will benefit from your presence, if you love the job enough. Yeah. And and I said that to him, and he said is a marvellous way of thinking about Easter, but to see him buzz with it. He's gonna get the downsides. He's going to have the bad diet when he phoned me last week. And he said, You know, I planned this lesson, I thought it was great. And I just didn't, I just didn't want to know, they just didn't want to. And he was like, That will happen sometimes. But it is the best job. It is the best job. It's been the best career. I've loved every minute of it. Even the tough bits as a hedge. You know, there were some really tough bits as ahead, but I learned from those and I grew from those and I wouldn't I wouldn't change anything, and I don't regret anything. So it's a profession that you're never gonna get rich from. But you'll be emotionally rich. And I think that's just as important sometimes.

Mark McBride-Wright: 57:34

Oh, if not more important. Absolutely. Tony, I've really enjoyed chatting with you today. Thanks so much for giving up your time and for for speaking to us. Thank you.

Tony Ryan: 57:46

My pleasure. I've enjoyed the conversation. Thanks. Thanks very much for inviting me on.

Mark McBride-Wright: 57:50

No worries. You have been listening to the EqualEngineers podcast, uncovering the diversity story behind leading engineers and those working with the profession championing change. If you've enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to the podcast on your podcast platform of choice and get notified when a new episode goes live. Did you know that we also offer a full transcript on each of our podcast episodes, check out our website equalengineers.com to explore our wider training and development programmes, our recruitment events, recognition awards, and case studies for how we are shaping the future of engineering for now, thank you for listening, and please come back and join us on a future episode.