Inside the DT Workshop: bringing theory and imagination to life

After nearly a term of online learning where the focus had to be on theory, drawing skills or practical work using resources only available at home, Mrs Liz Larkin, our inspirational and highly creative Design and Technology specialist teacher, was delighted to see the girls back in our fabulous workshop when in-school lessons restarted this term. 

In a very short amount of time, pupils have been creating the products they had been planning at home.   

Year 7 pupils are embracing woodwork with gusto, learning how to accurately cut timber and make a box to sort their customers’ belongings.  They are also learning how to use the laser cutter to decorate their products with beautiful designs based on an area of design history they have chosen.  

Year 8s are flying through their night light clock projects, learning to solder a circuit and gaining understanding of how a circuit works using a variety of components. They are also learning how to manipulate polymers using heat, which is always fun as the vacuum former and line bender heat their thermoplastics so they can form them into their designs. They develop their 2D design skills by creating stickers in the style of Memphis Design to be cut out using our CAM knife cutter. Their crazy night light clocks will be ready in a few weeks.  

Year 9 pupils worked on creative flat-packed furniture models drawing inspiration from shapes and curves, testing their ideas out at home using recycled cardboard. On returning to school they built their skills using 2D Design to produce scaled sections which were cut out on the laser producing a range of innovative accurate scale models.  They then finished their wonderfully colourful pizza cutters learning to deconstruct an everyday item and redesign it thinking about ergonomic and aesthetics. They have now moved on to designing a passive amp using a technique called ideation where they draw a range of random shapes then develop a product, testing out various elements of it using card and Styrofoam.  

Year 10 girls have been making products to enhance their skill-set. They are currently working on a three-tier box, with each tier made using a different joint, moving and opening using assorted mechanisms. Looking forward they will be experiencing the vacuum press to make laminated wooden shapes and using the laser cutter to make a slot-together lantern. 

Year 11 and the Upper Sixth have made the best of the year finishing it off by making bedside lamps. They have all created superb folders and despite being unable to make the products they have all shown enormous resilience, passion and creativity in their designs.