ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on skills auditing and the identification of gaps in beginning teachers’ subject knowledge, skills and understanding. For beginning design and technology (D&T) teachers, the challenge is the acquisition of skills and knowledge required to teach in a multi-activity and multi-material curriculum. The chapter looks at the mechanics of the auditing, a consideration of the effects that the deficit exposure can have on confidence and ways that mentors can support beginning teachers to develop their subject knowledge. The changing models of initial teacher training will have had an impact on how beginning teachers will have acquired their subject knowledge for teaching. Effective teachers will use their syntactic knowledge to make professional judgements, with their colleagues in school and the wider subject community, about how best to educate children through practical activities involving designing and making.
