Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend
Design Technology
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Steve Jobs
In Design Technology students cover a range of materials, techniques, and processes. Students are soon made aware that good design is about finding suitable and innovative solutions to problems, whether those problems are how to make a meal suitable for a specific dietary requirement, a garment that is suitable for a certain situation, or a product that meets all its consumer needs whilst still be aesthetically appealing.
Key Concepts
Design Technology offers opportunities for students to:
- develop knowledge and understanding of materials and components, systems and control and structures
- develop their capability, through combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding to design and make products
- nurture creativity and innovation
- explore values about and attitudes to the manufactured world and how we live, work and interact within it
- develop a critical understanding of technological processes, products and their manufacture, and how they contribute to our society
- relate and apply knowledge and understanding from across the curriculum
Key Skills
The key skills that embody our curriculum are:
Investigate – this includes tasks such as research, surveys, material and technique testing designer and artist research. This ensures that when we start designing we know the user of our product fully and can create coherent designs using appropriate materials and techniques.
Design – using our investigation, we can solve problems to create coherent design solutions that meet the needs of the user and the design specification.
Make– Using our burgeoning knowledge of materials, techniques and processes we can realise our design intentions through our appropriate and coherent understanding.
Evaluate– we can analyse and evaluate at all stages of the design process so that our progress forward and the product meets all areas of the design specification and is appropriate for the user’s needs.
What is taught?
Curriculum Map Design Technology
Academic Literacy in Design Technology
Students explore literacy through a number of activities. They learn how to use appropriate language for research, or writing instructions or creating a newspaper article. Students are strongly encouraged to use technical vocabulary throughout all lessons and this is supported by glossaries of key terminology and vocabulary for each unit.
Students are encouraged to extend their interest in Design Technology by…
- being curious about how things work
- ask questions about how we do things and whether they are the best options
- critically analysing their work and asking ‘can we do a task more efficiently, economically, sustainably?’
- problem-solving by asking ‘what happens if……?’
Enrichment Opportunities
After school clubs (Product Design, Textiles, Cooking Club)
Competitions (Design Ventura)
School trips (Design Museum, V&A)
Careers Guidance and Support for Design Technology:
https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/job-sectors/subject/product-design
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/tags/zn7h8xs/jobs-that-use-design-and-technology/1
https://www.stem.org.uk/secondary/careers/resources/design-and-technology
https://www.firstcareers.co.uk/subjects/design-technology/
https://www.flighteducation.co.uk/Design%20Technology.php
https://www.data.org.uk/for-partners/designing-your-future/
https://www.data.org.uk/media/2148/what-is-dt-leaflet.pdf