With over 30 years leading D&T departments and 20 years moderation and examining experience, the author is the winner of the 2021 Design and Technology Excellence in D&T award for 'Innovation and Creativity'.
He has extensive experience as a curriculum consultant, resource producer, trainer and presenter, and as a commercial designer, visualiser and illustrator. He is also a prolific writer on the subject of D&T whose Subject Genius D&T blog was shortlisted in the 2016 TES awards.
With over 30 years leading D&T departments and 20 years moderation and examining experience, the author is the winner of the 2021 Design and Technology Excellence in D&T award for 'Innovation and Creativity'.
He has extensive experience as a curriculum consultant, resource producer, trainer and presenter, and as a commercial designer, visualiser and illustrator. He is also a prolific writer on the subject of D&T whose Subject Genius D&T blog was shortlisted in the 2016 TES awards.
These ‘blank’ workbook templates allow students to take notes as they wish when studying the theory based on the Cornell note taking approach.
They include past paper questions from the A Level presentations so students can keep notes and complete prep/homework assignments in the same booklet.
Workbooks are provided in both editable PowerPoint and printable PDF formats.
Also included are two revision books that summarise or illustrate certain concepts from the theory materials.
A resource aimed at Primary level teaching that encourages the use of Tinkercad to design components using CAD which can then be 3D printed.
The resource contains a 40 PDF cocument with guides for how to create all the components but also has the components ready to 3D print in a zipped file.
The resource also considers the use of mechanisms within the curriculum.
UPDATE: Added a 33 page PowerPoint guide to using the MEKBOX which covers the use of mechanisms and motion.
**PLEASE NOTE: this resource will require access to a laser cutter and (optional) 3D printer to create the parts. **
This resource is aimed at late primary level (late KS2)/secondary level (early KS3) to help teach students about mechanisms and motion. The basic resource consists of six panels that can be stored flat or assembled into a storage box and that click together to form a board to connect mechanisms to. Because the parts need to be laser cut, you can print as many of the different panels as you may need.
The 2D parts are supplied in. DXF, .SVG and .AI (Illustrator) for laser cutting so they can be imported into a wide range of applications. Individual parts are also supplied in .DXF form.Please check that you can open or import these formats before purchasing.
If using 2D Design and importing DXF, please ensure units are set to mm
Included in the files are a relatively simple set of mechanical parts that connect to the board using readily available paper fasteners.
There are also a few small 3D printed elements which are optional if you just want to use the flat panels and mechanisms. The optional 3D printed parts are provided in .stl format ready to be imported into your slicing software.
A collection of the workbooks to support the theory presentations for 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3.
The resource consists of workbooks for the compulsory elements 3.1: Core technical principles and 3.3 Designing and making principles.
All five 3.2 workbooks are also supplied covering timber and wood, metals and alloys, paper and board, textiles and polymers.
This full resource is also included in the Ultimate D&T GCSE Teacher Toolkit.
A collection of 100 Design and Technology Subject Genius blogs each with a unique illustration published via the TES since 2016. This PDF collects together all of the blogs for easy access along with some additional content. Ideal to expand your reading on the subject or to use for discussion at department and management level.
Please note: this now contains two documents, each with 50 illustrated blogs which are no longer available to read on the TES site
A collection of the workbooks to support the theory presentations for 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3.
The resource consists of workbooks for the compulsory elements 3.1: Core technical principles and 3.3 Designing and making principles.
All five 3.2 workbooks are also supplied covering timber and wood, metals and alloys, paper and board, textiles and polymers.
This bundle represents a considerable saving on purchasing the individual workbooks.
This workbook support the theory presentations for 3.2 Specialist technical principles with the focus on textiles.
Without the theory presentations, the content and questions may not seem as relevant, but they are structured in a way that follows the syllabus.
The resource is in PowerPoint format so can be edited to suit, but a PDF version is also supplied.
This workbook support the theory presentations for 3.2 Specialist technical principles with the focus on paper and board.
Without the theory presentations, the content and questions may not seem as relevant, but they are structured in a way that follows the syllabus.
The resource is in PowerPoint format so can be edited to suit, but a PDF version is also supplied.
This workbook support the theory presentations for 3.2 Specialist technical principles with the focus on polymers.
Without the theory presentations, the content and questions may not seem as relevant, but they are structured in a way that follows the syllabus.
The resource is in PowerPoint format so can be edited to suit, but a PDF version is also supplied.
This workbook support the theory presentations for 3.2 Specialist technical principles with the focus on metals and alloys.
Without the theory presentations, the content and questions may not seem as relevant, but they are structured in a way that follows the syllabus.
The resource is in PowerPoint format so can be edited to suit, but a PDF version is also supplied.
This workbook supports the compulsory theory for the AQA GCSE in D&T (8552). The workbook is designed to match the theory presentations. Without these, the contents and questions in the workbooks may not seem as relevant, but they do address the syllabus criteria.
The workbook is in PowerPoint format so you can edit it to suit your needs but a PDF version is also included.
The resource includes:
3.3: Designing and making principles
This workbook support the theory presentations for 3.2 Specialist technical principles with the focus on Timber and wood.
Without the theory presentations, the content and questions may not seem as relevant, but they are structured in a way that follows the syllabus.
The resource is in PowerPoint format so can be edited to suit, but a PDF version is also supplied.
These two workbooks support the compulsory theory for the AQA GCSE in D&T (8552). These workbooks are designed to match the theory presentations. Without these, the contents and questions in the workbooks may not seem as relevant, but they do address the syllabus criteria.
The two workbooks are in PowerPoint format so you can edit them to suit your needs but PDF versions are also included.
The resource includes:
3.1: Core Technical Principles (two workbooks)
A DIY kit for making a rotational moulding machine. Unzip the parts, 3D print them, then follow the instructions supplied to build your own working Rotational Moulding kit.
All you need to provide, other than a 3D printer, is 10mm square wood, glue, screws and washers.
This resource is designed to teach a range of traditional and modern manufacturing skills which combine to make a desktop ‘gadget’.
You may be limited by time or resources and it would be difficult to cover all of these skills in depth during KS3 or even KS4.
There are 12 different skills or processes here, but there is the potential for many more to be introduced, incorporated or addressed. They cover:
Pewter casting
Vacuum forming
Marking out wood
Shaping and drilling wood
Cutting a knuckle joint
Forming metal rod
Vinyl cutting
3D CAD and 3D printing
Cutting a housing joint
Threading rod
Thermoforming (line bending)
Laser cutting
Assembling the Skills Bot
The resource contains instructions for the whole project as well as individual PDF presentations that can be projected in class or printed as handouts.
Also included are individual technical drawings for each components to make class hand outs easier to produce.
There is limited design work with this resource, although there are opportunities to customise or personalise some elements. It is intended to cover a range of skills that are commonly used in Design and Technology.
BLOK is a new type of STEM ‘building block’ intended for educational use and also developed for commercial production and sale.
**UPDATE **(June 2023). The 3D files for the basic BLOK/BLOX are now included in the resource.
PLEASE NOTE: The BLOK product is not yet available to buy in retail stores, but the 3D files will be shared in a forthcoming resource, and the resource has instructions on how to make your own components.
This resource uses the BLOK as a case study to cover many aspects of the design and manufacturing processes used in Design and Technology and 3D Art.
It is not a linear resource and you can refer to any of the units at any time for reference or as tutorials. Using the BLOK product as a reference, the resource contains 20 separate units covering the following topics:
BLOK1: Introduction to the BLOK resource
BLOK2: The story of BLOK
BLOK3: Investigation and research
BLOK4: The iterative design process
BLOK5: Modular approaches to design
BLOK6: Sketching with BLOX
BLOK7: CAD modelling BLOK
BLOK8: Materials for manufacturing BLOK
BLOK9: Prototyping BLOK
BLOK10: Manufacturing BLOK
BLOK11: Branding, packaging, and promotion
BLOK12: Enterprise and Intellectual Property
BLOK13: Testing and evaluation
BLOK14: Functions of BLOK
BLOK15: Developing for BLOK
BLOK16: Advanced sketching with BLOX
BLOK17: Advanced CAD modelling BLOK
BLOK18: Sustainability in design
BLOK19: Modelling BLOK with SketchUp
BLOK20: Digital sketching and composition
It also includes one extra unit*:
BLOKEX1: Joe Blox Solidworks tutorial
The units are provided in print and presentation friendly PDF format along with supporting high quality JPEG illustrations and posters.
*Additional units may be added to the resource in the future.
This is a collection of all the current AQA GCSE Design and Technology resources. It provides everything you need to teach, assess and track the theory content but with the 3.2 specialist material focus on textiles, as well as extensive support for the NEA.
It represents a saving of over 30% if buying all the resources separately.
Update: Mark scheme added for the past paper and other questions in the lessons.
A set of 15 lessons in editable Powerpoint Show format which cover the teaching of textiles. Each lesson includes a lesson outcome, introduction, summary of the unit and revision tips as well as links to maths and science and a suggested practical activity.
Questions and past paper questions are matched to those in the AQA DT tracker (recently updated) so you can deliver theory as well as assessing knowledge and tracking progress.
You only need to cover ONE material group in depth so use this resource with the GCSE compulsory theory bundle available separately which covers all of the compulsory learning units 3.1 and 3.2.
This is a collection of all current AQA GCSE Design and Technology resources.
It provides everything you need to teach, assess and track the theory content with compulsory units 3.1 and 3.3 and the 3.2 specialist materials covering timbers and woods, paper and boards, metals and alloys, polymers and textiles.
There is also extensive support for the NEA through an exemplar folder (and 3D printing files), students guides and much more.
The full set of of digital/printable workbooks have recently been added to the bundle at no extra cost.
It represents a saving of almost 40% if buying all the resources separately.