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KS4 Design and Technology

For Design and Technology, we will achieve this by ensuring: That all UTC Leeds students are work-ready, developing a range of technical and employability skills that will make them sought after in the region.

Overview

Course overview: GCSE Design and Technology will prepare students to participate confidently and successfully in an increasingly technological world, a key pre-requisite of successful engineers. Students will gain awareness and learn from wider influences on Design and Technology, including historical, social, cultural, environmental and economic factors. Students will get the opportunity to work creatively when designing and making and apply technical and practical expertise.

Our Design and Technology curriculum is broken down into ‘non-negotiables’ – the vital areas that a student needs to master in that subject. These non-negotiables underpin the learning throughout the duration of the study and our students understand that after developing competency in each strand, they will aim to develop mastery in each. The learning is coherently sequenced across the 4-year plan and mapped cross-curricular, and our sequence of learning plans specifies which non-negotiables are the learning foci and/or the knowledge that students will gain.

Design and Technology

Exam board: AQA

Year 10

During the two year course you will study a wide range of materials including papers and boards, timber, metals, polymers and textile fibres and fabrics to support any potential design solutions you may develop. You will also learn about wider design principles and the effect of design on users and the world we live in. You will then develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of specific materials and related techniques and processes, in order to construct working prototypes and achieve functioning design solutions through the study of existing design solutions.

In Year 10, this will be realised through design and make project work, where you will develop several projects throughout the year.

Year 11

You will complete an iterative design challenge where you will explore real needs and contexts, create solutions and evaluate how well the needs have been met and the problem solved. “Explore, create, evaluate” is a process that occurs repeatedly as design iterations are developed to continually improve the outcome, building clearer needs and better solutions, meaning ideas and prototypes can be developed into successful products in the future.

The content requires you to apply mathematical and scientific knowledge, understanding and skills. This content reflects the importance of Design Engineering as a pivotal STEM subject.

The Iterative Design Challenge is a single task that is worth 50% of the qualification. AQA will release contextual challenges. There will be three open and real-world contexts for learners to interpret and explore, creating iterations when designing and making through the processes of ‘explore, create and evaluate’.

The other 50% of the qualification covers the principles of design and technology in an examination. This is a single examination component with questions covering both ‘core’ and ‘in-depth’ content. This examination is 2 hours and questions offer full access to all learners regardless of their practical experiences in the subject.

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