Food 

The Year 7 course is designed to introduce/reinforce the following:

A wide range of practical skills

Use of cooker

Washing up hygienically

Rubbing in, i.e. scones, pizza, crumble, pastry

Preparation of various fruits/vegetables.  Claw/bridge ‘grip’

Dishes made from scratch

Use of everyday kitchen and food preparation equipment

Food storage

How to work effectively as part of a large group

Personal organisation skills

How to follow written, verbal and practical instruction

How to annotate recipes whilst watching practical demonstrations

Some problem solving

Healthier food choices and options.

Eatwell Guide

Food hygiene and safety.  Food storage, shopping for food – seasonal costs etc.

Evaluation of practical outcome and personal performance (smiley face charts)

Aesthetic development

Students need to bring the correct ingredients/equipment to practical lessons.  These are specified in scheme of work/recipes.  In Food lessons everybody brings their own ingredients and receptacles for taking food home in.  This is due to the fact that personal organisation and food selection is fundamental in the Curriculum and also GCSE Examination Specifications.  We have a very varied and diverse community at Kendrick with a multitude of special dietary requirements; food selection is therefore a very personal thing. 

Product Design 

In Design and Technology students combine practical and technological skills with creative thinking to design and make products and systems that meet human needs.  Over the period of the course students will learn to think creatively to design and make products intended to improve the quality of life.

We challenge any notion of gender inequalities and stereotypes in careers in technical and practical subjects such as Engineering, Product Design, Science and Architecture and aim to provide the necessary skills and self-confidence to enable students to apply for a range of careers and university courses.

The Year 7 course is intended to help students make the transition from primary school to the more sophisticated workshop environment of a secondary school.  The emphasis is on workshop practice and the safe and skilled use of tools and equipment.  The types of equipment the students are trained to use are: Hand tools – tenon saw, hack saw, hammers, screwdrivers and hand drills.  Power tools – disc sander, pillar drill, scroll saw, hotwire bender, and hand held power drills.

The current project is designed to introduce the use of tools, equipment and safe workshop procedure in a gradual and progressive manner.  This enables the students to gain confidence and skills of accuracy before progressing to more advanced and powerful machinery.

Materials introduced; woods – softwood and man-made boards, thermos-plastic polymers and their applications and manipulation (including hotwire bender).

Textiles 

The Year 7 Textiles course includes the following: 

A wide range of practical skills, design development, knowledge of basic textiles theory and health and safety, learning through practical demonstrations and examples, following verbal and written instructions.  

The design process in Year 7 involves researching the natural world, taking key shapes from photographic images of nature and creating simple shapes that can be stencilled onto fabric.  They have to consider the scale of shapes (so not all shapes are the same size).  They also scale up their designs and they consider different ways of creating a pattern repeat across an area of fabric and trial these variations.  Students are not simply drawing a design but have to remember that their design will be applied onto fabric using fabric crayons and brushes. 

Introduction to sewing machine  

Introduction to Health and Safety in Textiles 

Design process 

Stencilling 

Embellishment 

Cushion Construction 

Food 

The Year 8 course builds on work carried out in Year 7, extending knowledge and skills.  It is designed to introduce/reinforce the following:

How to do ‘proper’ written evaluations (as opposed to ‘smiley face charts’ used as an introduction in Year 7.

How to use the Nutrients programme to help with costings (a GCSE requirement).

Yeast and bread cookery.

An extended piece of work which makes students think about the Design of a new loaf of bread.

AFL.

A sequence of practicals where students use all the pieces of electrical equipment and how to use the safely, producing well presented end results. (Microwave, Kenwood, stick liquidizer, food processor, hand held mixer).

Further stand-alone practicals to produce savoury products and ensure students can tell when, for instance, potatoes are cooked.

Seasonal cookery (i.e. Summer term) – preparation of numerous fruit and vegetables to enhance skills and provide nutritional dishes (healthier eating and healthy options) fresh fruit salad, potato salad, pasta salad, chickpea salad, summer salad and simple homemade vinaigrette, coleslaw, Greek salad and honey mustard dressing.

As I see students every for a year, providing skills, knowledge and understanding are all substantially extended.  It is a good precursor to GCSE.

Product Design 

In Year 8 students have two main projects and a number of smaller projects intended to cover a range of topics.

Project One Electronic Night-light

This project is designed to introduce students to simple circuit construction and involves soldering to make connections and assemble components to form an LED light sensitive device that can be used as a night-light for children and including designing a suitably themed shade.  Students will have to consider the importance of correct polarity when connecting components, Health and Safety implications of soldering and the principles of how a circuit functions including flow charts.

Project Two “Natural” Jewellery

The project is designed to introduce students to designing, CAD/CAM, metal casting and packaging.

Students will use natural forms to stimulate ideas for pendant jewellery and then draw up their designs.  After revising the designs using a CAD program the students will cast designs from molten pewter into their moulds which are cut using CAM (2D Design and CNC router/milling machine).  The rough cast is then polished and finished with fittings to make pendants for their chosen market.  Packaging will consist of a blister pack wrapped around the pendant and a backing sheet.  The students will have to consider basic principle of marketing and functions of packaging to appeal to their target market and then go on to use Photoshop to manipulate  images and text to create their design for the backing sheet and graphic identity for their design company that will produce and market the product.

Technical drawing - Students will learn and practice a range of drawing systems including perspective and isometric to enable them to ‘visualise’ and communicate their design ideas.

Structures - Students will investigate the use of structures by building a model bridge and then testing it to destruction to evaluate the most effective structural forms.

Textiles 

The Year 8 Textiles course includes the following: 

A wide range of practical skills; design development, knowledge of textile theory and revision of Health and Safety, learning through practical demonstrations and examples following verbal and written instructions.   

The design process in Year 8 is different to Year 7.  It involves researching the theme of ‘My Identity and Me’ in order to create design ideas for the decorative elements to their bag.  They apply the decoration to their pocket using the technique of appliqué and have to think about the layering of fabric shapes to achieve the image they want.  They also must consider the scale of their design and have to scale up their final design.  They need to bear in mind that their design will be reversed when applied to their fabric and some students need to reverse it before they cut out the bondaweb (layer of adhesive) and fabric shapes.  They can use a variety of colours of felt fabric to achieve this and can further embellish with decorative components such as embroidery thread, beads, sequins, etc.  Students practise the technique of appliqué before they start the design process.  They are given the opportunity to choose and purchase their own fabric and can make individual design choices regarding the construction of the tote bag, as there are variations they can do according to their ability.  This project is followed by extended work in the summer term, in the form of mini-projects involving construction and embellishment skills that further develop their competence in the subject.  

Revision of sewing machine 

Revision of Health and Safety in Textiles 

Design Process 

Construction of lined tote bag 

Additional items