Areas Studied Key Stage 3 At St. Catherine’s School, students in their first three years in the Design & Technology Faculty, follow a coordinated course designed to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum in Design & Technology.
Through the Design and Expressive processes, the students are encouraged to respond to visual, tactile and technological problems, learning that there is always a variety of possible solutions through which to express their ideas or with which to solve a particular problem.
Students will work with four distinct materials spending ten weeks in each area:
- Resistant Materials
- Textiles
- Food
- Systems and Control / Graphics (Systems & Control studied in year 7, and Graphics in years 8 & 9)
The projects currently being delivered at key stage 3:
Resistant Materials
Year 7: Timbers, Tools and Machinery - Photo Frame
Year 8: Plastics, Metals and Manufactured Boards, Clock project
Year 9: Metals and Manufacturing Methods- Jewellery ProjectSystems & Control
Year 7: CAD/CAM and Electronics - Night Light ProjectGraphics
Year 8: Promotional Graphic Design - Movie Marketing Project
Year 9: Architecture and Interior Design – Community Cafe Textiles
Year 7: Application of surface textiles - Cushion Project
Year 8: Application of Colour – Summer top/dress project
Year 9: Re-cycling Step Project – Number of short focused sampling and mini projects Food Technology
Year 7: Culinary Basics & Food Hygiene -Scone Zone
Year 8: Snack Attack – Snack Design & Vegetable Lasagna
Year 9: Designing recipes for industry- Community Cafe
Areas Studied Key Stage 4
Product Design
Graphic Products
Textiles
Catering |
News and Events:
What is Design and Technology?
Design and Technology is a practical-based subject. Students develop D&T capability through combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding to enable them to design and make products.
As well as having its own distinctive knowledge, understanding and skills, D&T also requires students to apply the skills, knowledge and understanding from other subjects, especially art, mathematics and science. The students’ imagination, creativity and Inventiveness are stimulated as they develop products to meet precise specifications.
Why do students have to study D&T?
Design & Technology is a subject which recognizes that we spend most of our time PLANNING and MAKING things that affect our own lives and the lives of others.
As adults we are required to carry out a wide range of activities drawing on an increasing range of knowledge, understanding and skills. Frequently we must make choices and decisions, usually working in teams.
The D&T curriculum acknowledges that the world of work is a complex, rapidly changing environment in which young people must learn to be flexible and to negotiate with others in order to solve problems by developing functional and wider skills for learning and life.
Students will develop their D&T capability through three types of activity. These include:
- Design and make assignments in which the students pupils put their capability to work to develop a product that meets real needs
- Focused practical tasks in which students develop and practice particular skills and knowledge;
- Product and applications tasks in which students explore existing products, and use what they find out to add to their own repertoire of skills and knowledge and understanding.
How do we measure success?
Successful learners are students who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve. Students will be given target & aspirational target grades to help them achieve their full potential in Design & Technology. Self and peer assessment will be integrated into lessons and form part of assessment as well as more formal end of module tests. Tracks will be completed every six weeks to help students and parents monitor progress.
We aim to help students become confident individuals who are able to lead safe, healthy and fulfilling lives. We also encourage students to be responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.
In Design & Technology students will address the five areas related to the ‘Every Child Matters Agenda’
- Be healthy
- Stay safe
- Enjoy and achieve
- Make a positive contribution
- Achieve economic well being
The Importance of Design & Technology
Design and Technology prepares pupils to participate in tomorrow’s rapidly changing technologies. They learn to think and intervene creatively to improve quality of life. The subject calls for pupils to become autonomous and creative problem solvers, as individuals and members of a team. They must look for needs, wants and opportunities and respond to them by developing a range of ideas and making products and systems. They combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetics, social and environmental issues, function and industrial practices. As they do so, they reflect on and evaluate present and past design and technology, its uses and effects. Through studying this subject, all pupils can become discriminating and informed users of products, and also become innovators.
At St Catherine’s School, we believe that every young learner should be entitled to develop creative, practical and interpersonal skills which will equip them for life in a technological society. It is absolutely vital that we educate the next generations of designers and technologists to support an economy in which our current Chancellor, George Osborne, wants ...the words: Made in Britain, Created in Britain, Designed in Britain and Invented in Britain to drive our nation forward. |
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