Design & Technology

Design Technology at Emanuel is a blend of creativity, problem solving, engineering and technology.We believe that all children are naturally creative and are capable of producing work of originality and value. As a department, we have established an environment of creative independence, where imagination and strategic thinking fuel our future. Many changes have developed over the past few years, and change is fundamental to DT. In our lessons we encourage a blend of sketching, practical exploration, and modelling extensively. We also use CAD (computer aided design) in most of our projects, just as real-world designers do, utilising contemporary techniques and software. At A Level we take this one step further and work with industry.

The KS3 curriculum has a focus on the user and sustainability. We work on ergonomic and anthropometric design in Year 7, and biomimicry within design in Year 8. In Year 9 we encourage students to consider their own design style and take creative risks where students create lighting solutions inspired by the work of a product designer of their choice.

At GCSE and A Level, students have produced fully functional and finished outcomes with fantastic portfolios to match; we are extremely proud of all that our exam classes have created. Students have gone on to study Product Design, Industrial Design, Robotics, and Engineering across a range of top universities including Loughborough, Nottingham, and Edinburgh, and students have gone forward to apprenticeships with GlaxoSmithKline, amongst others.

Looking to the future, we continue to embrace change and continue to strike the balance between creativity and problem solving, all whilst achieving top grades to prepare our students for the next stage of their careers.