Course Outline / Overview

To enable pupils to experience and learn techniques and transferable skills that will allow them to understand and cope with the world of both the present and future.

Key Stage 3

Through a series of practical projects we aim to produce situations which give pupils the opportunity to use their intellectual and creative skills to solve problems, through the design and make approach.

The projects aim:-

• To give pupils the opportunity to test and evaluate their solutions by providing them with the skills to make value judgments.
• To provide an understanding of materials and their properties and an understanding of basic technological concepts and their application.
• To establish safe working practices and develop the ability to communicate designing, making and testing by appropriate methods.
• To produce situations in which the pupils can express themselves creatively.
• To give the pupils the opportunity to apply concepts learned in other areas of the school curriculum and to encourage an interest and understanding of manufacturing industry.

Key Stage 4

All students who choose this option will study Design and Technology specialising in one main subject area; Graphic Products, Food Technology or Resistant Materials. AQA

Students will learn all about the design process and will develop skills in evaluating existing products, and learn about how products are made in industry. Students will also complete various practical tasks and projects which will develop skills using a range of tools and machines, including industrial practices such as CAD/CAM. All work in the workshops will have to be carried out in a safe and responsible manner taking into account all ‘Health and Safety’ issues which you will be taught about during the course.

YEARS 12 – 13

The GCSE courses are designed to allow easier progression for those wishing to do A-level Product Design AQA in the sixth form.

The Product Design courses allow students the opportunity to design and make products, that could potentially be produced commercially and marketed; and to solve problems that they identify. They also encourage a breadth of study relevant to creative work whilst affording the opportunity for pupils to identify their own priorities within the general area of design and technology.