Design & Technology
The Design Technology Department occupies the ground floor of the recently built Design Technology Pavilion and comprises four dedicated rooms:
The Workshop. A traditional workshop with facilities for working with wood, metal and plastics including pillar drill, morticer, vacuum former and casting machine. The workshop is also well equipped with electronics equipment including soldering irons.
Food skills Lab. A designated Food Skills area equipped to develop a variety of food and cookery practical skills
The CAD/CAM and manufacturing suite which houses our CAM equipment including a laser cutter, two 3D printers along with a bank of sewing machines, PCs and sublimation equipment. All of the PCs run a variety of applications including 2d Design and solidworks, a 3D Cad package used in industry.
The Junior DT room, which is a dedicated area for our primary pupils.
Curriculum:
Key Stage 3
From Year 7 to 9 pupils are taught in mixed ability groups, following a skills-based course which uses National Curriculum guidelines as the basis of our Schemes of Work. Pupils carry out focused design and practical tasks, developing their fine motor skills through a variety of projects, gaining experience of a variety of hand tools and workshop equipment. Design, including technical drawing techniques are also introduced. Pupils will learn about both traditional and modern materials, including smart material, and gain an introduction to computer aided design and manufacture.
Chetwynde School provides an enjoyable experience for all pupils where everyone has the opportunity to develop their designing and making skills to produce high quality products in a new building with state of the art equipment. Staff strive to provide challenging and relevant work, which encourages independent analytical thinking and problem solving that will enhance skills demanded by business and industry. Each topic studied within DT allows students the opportunity to apply valued judgements of a social, moral, economical and aesthetic nature. They learn a range of communication skills, including verbal, graphical and 3D CAD modelling, which they use to design successful products.
Key Stage 4
There are currently two options for pupils at Chetwynde who wish to continue there studies in Design Technology:
The pupils follow the AQA specification which requires pupils to complete a written exam 50% of GCSE and a non-exam assessment (NEA) 50% of GCSE.
Cambridge National Certificate in Engineering Design
This qualification requires pupils to complete four units of work comprising an examination and three units of coursework all worth 25% of the overall mark.
