Background
Design Technology is taught on a termly rotation model in KS3. All pupils do a term each of Resistant Materials and Systems, Textiles and Food Technology. We aim to keep our class sizes at below 20 students in KS3 and KS4 and they are taught in fully equipped workshops and kitchens with highly qualified and experienced staff.
We currently offer GCSE Design and Technology, including a dedicated class focusing on Fashion and Textiles, and Level 2 Cambridge National in Engineering Manufacture.
All Design Technology classrooms have visually clear fronts to the classroom to help avoid over stimulating ASD students and clutter is avoided in all rooms, helping to support students to focus on the resources being shown. Furthermore, resources, students’ practical work and written work are stored tidily away.
All Design Technology lessons have a consistent approach to help students anticipate and know what to expect from the structure of the lesson. The structure of lessons will involve students lining up outside the room and collecting when invited their folders/books, which are laid out on the table before starting the Do-It-Now task. At the end of the lesson the books will be collected in and then students are dismissed a table or row at a time.
Planning
We create annotated seating plans using EHCPs and pupil passports, as well as any other information we have received, to seat and support students in our classrooms. The seating plans will allow for students to adjust their position if their additional need requires it.
At the end of each rotation, we pass these seating plans on to the next teacher, along with notes on any strategies that we have successfully used. This helps ensure that teachers start the rotation knowing how to support the students.
We liaise with the SEND/CAIRB where necessary.
All of us have developed schemes of work for projects that are suitable for a range of abilities, as well as extension work for our more able students.
Where appropriate, we use PowerPoints which we have developed over time, to support our lessons. This also enables us to include examples of exemplar work. Where applicable, we print off the PowerPoint slides for students to use during the lesson.
We use yellow/buff backgrounds with dark blue or black Century Gothic or Calibri font on PowerPoints created in house.
Students work from printed A4 workbooks. We keep these at the end of the projects, so that the next teacher can see them and we can check progression or provide evidence for EHCPs if necessary.
For KS4 DT coursework, we use A3 workbooks and include templates where necessary, as well as checklists and detailed lists of the requirements.
We have made videos of key skills that we can use in our lessons (for example, soldering, threading the sewing machines) as well as instruction sheets for some techniques and processes.
We all have visualisers in our rooms and plan for their use during demonstrations.
Teaching
We have specialist equipment in our rooms to help SEND students. These include hand sewing machines, cordless irons and tabletop ironing boards, adjustable work benches, PCB holders, templates and jigs and various other things we have bought over the years, sometimes for specific students.
We often model in our teaching, both to whole classes as well as to smaller groups and individuals. We often demonstrate practical and written tasks using the “I do, we do, you do” method as this helps to ensure students know what to do, step by step.
Our “Do it Now” tasks often include mix and match vocabulary lists. Written work is usually done using templates and we make good use of exemplar materials and visual prompts.
We have built up a bank of structure strips to help students answer the essay type questions they are likely to encounter at KS4.
We feel that we usually have good relationships with SEND students and we try to ensure they all leave with a finished practical product, especially if they are missing lessons due to their additional needs. If necessary, we help them or make use of our department technicians to complete the practical out of lesson time this is because we know how important it is that they feel the same pride in taking something home as everyone else.
We have a technician, who is fully qualified in Health and Safety in Design Technology, who can help during Resistant Materials and Systems and Control lessons to support students with additional needs or help the TAs support their students in an area they may not feel confident in. The technician’s presence can also allow teachers to support other students while the technician supervises the use of machinery and tools.
We also have an HLTA, who is able to offer targeted interventions for our KS4 students. The HLTA also helps with the access arrangements for some students.
We give personalised verbal and written feedback during lessons. We also have our own, dedicated computer suite which students can use if required, allowing them to use immersive reader and allowing them to access their exam arrangements for coursework, as well as the written exam.
The department does regular moderation of students work to help ensure all teachers have the same expectations for work and share their best practice in supporting students with additional needs.
