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Design and Technology Staff |
Department Information |
Curriculum Leader – Mr S Leake (ext 13324)
Teacher – Mr M Walker
Technician – Mr C Thorneycroft
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Design and Technology
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Our fantastic new facilities have already made a huge difference for the students and staff in Technology.
Each of our rooms was designed specifically by the Technology team to ensure that they would provide us with the optimum teaching spaces for our specialist areas. Rooms have been created individually for Resistant Materials, Food, Electronics and Textiles together with an area in the central breakout space for our CAD/CAM machinery. |
The arrival of our latest computer controlled equipment has resulted in the transformation of the work that students are doing.
Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacture or CAD CAM for short, has been an instant success and is now embedded in both our KS3 and KS4 curriculum. Already, students can see the massive potential these industrial quality machines can bring to their projects. They are clearly being inspired by their arrival and can see that the precision of these machines will enable them to create projects which were simply impossible before... all that is missing now is their imagination and vision as to how they can use them to greatest effect. |
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The fact that these machines use computer technology means that students will leave with the knowledge, understanding and skills to use similar machines in the industrial world. This may be on to post 16 college courses, modern apprenticeships or full time employment. |
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Key Stage 3
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At Key Stage 3, students rotate around four disciplines, Food, Graphics, Electronics and Resistant Materials spending approximately nine weeks in each area. This offers students the opportunity to gain knowledge and develop skills in a variety of subjects which enables them to make an informed choice about studying a subject at GCSE. |
Food and Nutrition
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Students follow a scheme which teaches them how to cook and encourages them to want to try different things. The scheme covers an extremely wide variety of food recipes from around the world. Designed to give all students the chance to cook using an increasing number of ingredients and then taste their products. |
Graphics
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An area which underpins not only the whole of Technology but develops skills which are easily transferable across the whole curriculum. Students are taught to present information on paper and also by using ICT. Students therefore acquire a mixture then of both traditional and electronic skills which are used not only in Technology but also in everyday life. |
Resistant Materials and Electronics
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Again in both these subject areas, students follow a scheme which is designed to introduce both traditional and more modern approaches to designing and making a product. Students learn skills which include working with wood, metal and plastics. They learn about the fundamentals of electronics and how to build simple circuits to solve problems. Both areas now explore the use of CAD CAM and projects have been modified to include these skills. This is seen as an extremely important development because technology is widely used and students need this basic experience if they are to develop an understanding of its capabilities. |
Key Stage 4
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Students are able to choose any of our subjects to study to GCSE. From September 2013 we will be offering EDXCEL – Electronics, Graphics, Resistant Materials and OCR - Food and Nutrition.
The EDXCEL course is linear and requires students to produce one Design and Make project worth 60% and sit one written examination worth 40%. Both these elements are completed in Year 11. In Year 10 therefore, students will concentrate on developing their knowledge and understanding of the subject and follow a scheme which enables them to improve their skill base in a wide variety of subject related topics. |
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