Welcome to Technology.
Within Technology, students can study Creative iMedia, Design Technology and Food and Nutrition. For more detailed information on each specialism please click on the drop down sections below.
Head of Department: Charlie Evans.
Tim Speller is the Lead Teacher for Food and Nutrition and qualified with a BA Hons in International Hospitality Management. His interests include surfing, windsurfing and snowboarding. He is also a BSA qualified surf coach.
Georgina Maltby has qualified in BA Hons Interior Textiles and Surface design. Her interests include travelling, photography, making her own clothes and cooking. She is advanced in PADI scuba-diving.
Laura Pearce is a Design Technology Technician.
Gosia Piotrowicz is the Food and Nutrition Technician.
Rachael Wood is a Design Technology Teacher and qualified with BA Hons in History of Design. She also has a food hygiene certificate, a windsurfing certificate and has completed the advanced PADI scuba-diving. Her interests include professional cookery and sea-swimming.
CAD/CAM
Students will complete the AQA Design Technology course, during the course they will have the opportunity to specialise in Graphics, Textiles and Resistant Materials.
Technology makes the world a new place!
SHOSHANA ZU
Studying Design Technology encourages creative thinking and activity. It helps students to develop the cognitive and practical skills involved in problem solving and intelligent decision-making.
Our aim as a department is to make students aware of the world around them and how technology has an impact on the environment and its resources.
Through our teaching we seek to establish an understanding of the principles of design and a personal command of the design process. We will provide experience of the nature and uses of a variety of materials and manufacturing processes.
Students will become aware of the changes occurring in the world today as a result of the technological innovation in the home and at work, whilst encouraging the application of technological understanding to the solving of problems or tasks in order to improve the quality of life.
Design Technology will stimulate the discussion of values of an aesthetic, technical, economical and moral nature. Through the curriculum we will help to emphasise the integrated nature of Design and Technology and its strong links with other subject areas.
Graphic Design enables students to develop products using a range of graphic and modelling materials and new technologies.
Studying Graphic Design teaches you to use the specialist skills you have learnt to high standards. You will be able to analyse and appraise your own work, discuss the work of other designers and artists using subject specific vocabulary and you will be able to use diversity and variety in your thinking. A Graphic Design qualification can lead to many career paths, varying from illustration to visual merchandising to graphic design for print and web publications.
In Year 7 you will get to grips with the basics of Graphic Design. You will develop your drawing skills and your understanding of graphic design principles. You will learn how to research for your project and to let that research influence your final product.
In Year 8 you will gain a greater knowledge of the role of CAD in Graphic Design. Computer based designing will create the basis for a project in which you use CAD and CAM to create and manufacture a product which meets a set brief.
If you study Graphic Design at GCSE level you will broaden your knowledge to include typography, illustration and printing processes. There is a wider use of CAD and CAM usage at GCSE. You will be given a brief and you will work to create imaginative coursework and products.
Resistant Materials Technology is the design and making of products using a range of materials such as wood, metals and plastics. Students will be encouraged to incorporate new technologies in the production of their products.
Resistant Materials helps make students aware of the world around them and how technology has an impact on the environment and its resources.
In Year 7 students will learn to use a vacuum former, workshop machinery and hand tools. The new knowledge of these tools will be used to create a project from multiple materials.
In Year 8 students will carry through what was learned in Year 7 to improve their making skills. The project in Year 8 will concentrate on using metal.
Studying Resistant Materials at GCSE involves using a wider variety of machinery, including the lathe for wood and metal. Students will also be proficient in the use of more specific hand tools. Working to a set brief students are encouraged to make the most original work they can.
Textiles Technology enables students to develop a working knowledge of a wide range of textiles materials and components appropriate to modelling, prototyping and manufacturing. Students will learn about design and market influences, processes and manufacture, environmental issues and the use of ICT in relation to the manufacturing of material products.
A Textiles qualification opens up many doors. You will have skills to create designs for fashion or interiors; to design and create costumes for film, television and theatre; to create sellable products with your own imaginative flair. Your skills will open up pathways to working with clients, working to a brief and having the confidence to create your own projects. Textiles gives you valuable transferrable skills such as dexterity, patience, and attention to detail as well as communication skills.
In Year 7 students will learn some textile design techniques and how to operate a sewing machine. These skills will allow students to spend a half term creating a textile product to a brief.
In Year 8 students get the chance to advance their knowledge of textiles by learning more embellishment techniques. Knowledge of textile construction will be expanded by using a pattern to create a product. Students will also get the chance to create embellishment on our Digital Embroidery Machine using CAD.
At GCSE level students will learn a wealth of textile construction techniques used in industry. Machinery knowledge will be expanded to include the use of the overlocker. There is more opportunity to use CAD to create work on the Digital Embroidery Machine and Laser Cutter. Students will be encouraged to create the most imaginative products they can come up with and combine their personal interests with the subject.
Food & Nutrition is about accessing all of the curriculum through a journey of food. Every child can improve their whole life through a love and understanding of the importance of food.
There is no sincerer love, than the love of Food.
George Barnard - Shaw
Food & Nutrition will give you skills for a professional career in food nutrition, sports nutrition and product development. Food and cooking are skills for successful living through all of your life. Food brings quality of life to you and all your current and future family.
In Year 7 you will learn five key cooking skills used in professional kitchens. The nutritive value of food and a balanced diet are key areas of study, too.
In Year 8 you will learn how to cook international cultural cuisine from scratch, investigating current issues facing food and cooking today.
In GCSE Food and Nutrition you will learn how to plan and prepare nutritionally balance multi cultural food from scratch for particular target consumer groups. One large coursework project is worked on in Year 10. An exam is sat in Year 11.
There are regular opportunities to cater for in-house events and competitions.
Creative and Digital Media plays an important part in many areas of our everyday lives and is also an important part of the UK economy. There is a demand from employers for an increasingly skilled and technically literate workforce as more and more media products are produced digitally. Creative iMedia provides students with specific and transferable skills and a solid foundation in understanding and applying this subject, whether it is in employment or higher education.