Design & Technology (Resistant and Textiles)
Design and Technology provides the opportunity for students to practice a range of skills and allows them to engage positively with the designed world around them. They learn how products and systems are designed and manufactured, how to be innovative and to make creative use of a variety of resources including digital technologies. They understand about the needs of different users and how products are designed in order to suit the intended environment. Students are introduced to a range of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths) careers that relate to the topic’s studied, showing them real life applications for the skills learnt. Design and Technology regularly promotes STEAM skills and attributes within it’s lessons, as well as offering students the opportunity to cover other STEAM subject’s theory continent covered in practical ways.
In Design and Technology students have the opportunity to explore their creativity through experimenting with a wide range of processes and materials. Students will go own their own iterative design journeys through a range of; practical investigations, researching tasks, generation of ideas, development of ideas through serval forms of modelling in order to complete a final prototype. Students will evaluate and test throughout the process, in order to inform design decisions. Design and Technology covers a wide range of materials which includes; woods, metals, plastics & fabrics. Students can select to study Design and Technology at GCSE focusing on either Resistant (Computer Aided design, Plastics and Timbers) or Textiles (Computer Aided Design, Paper and Boards and Fabrics).
Design and Technology students will use several CAD packages and will sample several manufacturing processes including Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM). Modelling and iterative design features heavily within the course and mirrors current processes used within industry. Students are encouraged to link their understanding of materials and processes learnt, in order to make their own decisions on how best to manufacture their created designs in their final prototypes.