I've been asked a lot this year, 'what's it like now you've left full-time teaching?'
My name is John Donnelly, founder of DTResources Limited and the ‘Design and Technology Teachers’ Facebook page’. Launched in 2015, the company began due to the creation of the DTDOT®, a drawing stencil born from teaching a student how to sketch. Since then, the company has grown both in terms of the products offered and consultancy services associated with Design and Technology.
Up until August 2024, as well as running DTResources, I have been a full-time teacher (for 23 years), Head of Department (for 20 years), MAT and Regional HUB lead, a Registered Design and Technology Association H&S Consultant (RDTHSC) and occasionally write for companies such as The BBC, D&Ta, Oak Academy, TEDI London and CLEAPSS.
I now work part-time at a school in Manchester, still as Head of Department for D&T, but also with a whole school, multi-site responsibility for H&S. My time is split equally between this work and DTResources. DTResources offers four main services:
- Sales of D&T related products and consumables
- Design and Technology Association H&S machine training
- Machine Annual H&S inspections/reports and also repair and servicing
- Teacher CPD on all areas of Design and Technology, both online and in school
Registered Design and Technology Association H&S Consultant
I decided that I wanted to be a Registered Design and Technology Association H&S Consultant (RDTHSC) a few years ago so that I could offer machine training to teachers within the same Trust/MAT, whilst also ensuring that my own department remained compliant and up-to-date. I think it took around two years to become a RDTHSC, the process is quite rightly rigorous and involved me observing other trainers as well as being observed delivering sessions myself; it is very much like training to be a teacher again.
Once you have become a RDTHSC you then need to build up the machine standards that you can deliver yourself. Each D&Ta trainer must not only be trained to deliver the courses they run; they also need to attend the ‘Train the Trainer (TTT)’ courses every five years so that the H&S standards covered are up-to-date and consistent across all trainers. There is also a RDTHSC conference that must be attended every two years. The D&Ta do a fantastic job of ensuring there is a process to support teachers in remaining safe in the workshop. I still think there is work to be done in schools with senior leaders to ensure that time and money is put aside to support teachers in having the training they need. If there was an accident in my department and a H&S investigation took place, I would not want to try and defend myself in court if I did not have the backing of current D&Ta training.
Machine H&S Inspection and Maintenance
All machines need to be maintained and serviced if they are to run well and remain safe. It is not uncommon that when I arrive at a school for a machine training course, I find myself fixing/adjusting part of it before the session can start. I now spend a large portion of my time conducting annual H&S inspections/report writing of machines. All the reports I write are done to the BS4163:2021+A1:2022 standards to ensure that machines are set up correctly and are safe to use. I never offer an ‘inspection only’ service as I always want to leave the machine in a better state than I found it. I work closely with all major machine manufacturers and am able to source all parts to fix and up-keep the safe working of the machine. DTResources will always offer an ‘Inspection and Service’ plan rather than leave you with a list of things you could have done. I know this sounds quite geeky, but I also collect machine manuals for pretty much every machine I have ever seen in a workshop. This ensures that I know how to replace some of the more uncommon parts from the exploded diagrams that I now have in my collection. I am pretty certain that if it is broken, I can fix it.
Teacher CPD
I was the Bolton HUB lead for 10 years, part of this role was to bring teachers together to share good practice, share ideas and support each other, we met each half term for an afternoon and had a full day together in July. Whole departments were encouraged to attend in July; it felt very much like a large D&T conference! I loved this role and always felt very privileged to be able to gain knowledge from so many other fantastic teachers in Bolton.
I always tried to deliver some form of CPD with the group and always thought it was a ‘safe space’ for me to test out new ideas and methods of delivering aspects of the courses I delivered to students. It was from this that DTResources online CPD sessions started. Between 2022 and 2024, over 400 teachers attended the online CPD sessions I delivered. I tried to cover sessions that focussed on developing skills and knowledge that could be shared with students the next day. Whilst I currently get many bookings to deliver this type of training in schools, I hope that I find the time to start evening CPD sessions again as I know that getting cover can be a huge issue.
Admin and paperwork
There is no doubt that I love my job; I am still in the classroom teaching the subject I am passionate about, whilst also getting to visit schools each week either work on machines or deliver machine training/CPD to teachers. Before you read this and think it sounds fantastic, there is a huge amount of paperwork and admin associated with my jobs.
Not only is there the usual work that comes with being a secondary school teacher (enough said about this the better), there is the admin side to running a company that takes me a couple of hours a night to do and some of the weekend too. Many schools order via a PO number, this means that as well as shipping/posting goods out to schools, there is also invoicing to do.
Schools that want to book subject CPD or D&Ta Machine Training need quotes, invoices and then post course admin to ensure that H&S certificates are issued by the D&Ta.
Stock taking, ordering, paying my own invoices and sorting out accounts is something I try to work on constantly as these jobs can mount up to take days if I’m not careful.
What’s next for DTResources?
- I hope that in 2025 I am able to continue to grow the stock that the company sells so that even more great value products can make their way into schools
- I hope that I am able to start offering CPD courses online to teachers again in the evening
- I am working towards gaining my last couple of D&Ta H&S standards so that I can offer training on ALL specialist level machine courses
- With a bit of juggling with the days my wife works, I am hoping to be able to cover a larger area of the UK so I can visit more schools that are not just in the North of England
- It would be lovely to be able to employ someone to work with me