This site hosts a single document outlining a practical, modernised approach to education reform. It reflects decades of experience in engineering, teaching, and curriculum development, and proposes a clear, workable framework for improving the UK secondary education system.
About the Author — Richard Harris
I’m Richard Harris, a retired systems engineer and former Head of Technology at a UK grammar school. Before moving into education, I spent over thirty years in engineering — working across military, industrial, and hybrid hardware‑software systems. When I later became a teacher and department head, I saw first‑hand how even academically selective schools struggled to deliver modern, practical, and technically aligned learning within the constraints of the national system.
For fifteen years, I taught Design & Technology and IT to students aged 11–18, managing workshops, budgets, curriculum planning, and the realities of running practical subjects in a school where expectations were high and outcomes mattered. During that time, I watched D&T uptake fall by 60%, teacher numbers drop by 50%, and some schools remove the subject entirely. None of this was caused by a lack of student interest or teacher skill — it was caused by system architecture.
My interest in solving these structural problems goes back a long way. More than thirty years ago, my teaching degree thesis explored a combined software‑and‑hardware system designed to address exactly these issues. Computing has changed dramatically since then — hardware is vastly cheaper, simulation is commonplace, and artificial intelligence has become a practical tool rather than a research curiosity. These advances don’t negate the ideas I had then; they enhance them. The core principles remain the same, but the technology now exists to make them viable at scale.
What I’m proposing here is not a new initiative or a minor tweak, but a complete architectural redesign: one that uses simulation, expert‑built curriculum, adaptive learning, and shared specialist facilities to make practical, technical, and conceptual subjects viable again.
I’m retired now. I’m not seeking a job, a contract, or a consultancy. This project is simply something I believe in — a piece of engineering thinking I’ve carried for decades and finally want to put into the world. My goal is not remuneration. It’s recognition of the idea itself, and the hope that it may be useful to people shaping the future of education.