D and T Education provides professional support for Design and Technology education and other areas of the school curriculum.

Class Size Petition

The Design and Technology Association has set up a petition on the Prime Minister's Downing Street website to call for legislation to establish a class size limit for design and technology classes.

The petition reads:

‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to legislate, on the grounds of health and safety and in line with the laws already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland, for a maximum class size of 20 at KS3 and 18 at KS4 to ensure the safe and effective teaching of design and technology in secondary schools in England and Wales.’

Sign up to this petition by following this link: Class size petition

West Midlands Digital Design and Technology Support Centre

at the

Design and Technology Show at the NEC 20th - 22nd November 2008

The West Midlands Digital Support Centre showcased the work of the new Digital DT programme by running a workshop at the NEC over the three days of the show.  THis gave visitors the opportunity to see the potential of integrating CAD/CAM and ECT courses, and the wide range of accessible processes available for use in the classroom.

The workshop was based on the highly successful pilot funded by the Teacher Development Agency in 2007 held at Finham Park School, Coventry.  The aim of this pilot was to develop innovative curriculum materials and CPD approaches and activities to explore how the technology available through CAD/CAM and ECT programme's can be used to support teachers developing integrated KS3 activities that involve designing and making functional electronic products to a high standard using CAD/CAM and PIC technologies.

Rapid Prototyping Courses

West Midlands Digital DT Support Centre runs Rapid Prototyping course for design and technology staff at Finham Park School, Coventry over two Saturday's leading up to Christmas.  The main focus of these two days was to look at how the new BST Dimension 3D Printer provided to all Digital DT support centre's can be used to produce enclosures for small electronic products.  The course also explored other potential uses of 3D printing technology within the design and technology curriculum.

... find out more

Digital Design and Technology Framework

The new Digital Design and Technology Framework is now available to view via the Department for Children and Families (DCFS) website.  The examples on this website are not restricted to the software available through the CAD/CAM in schools programme and illustrate the whole range of CAD/CAM software used in schools.

To submit examples of work from your own school follow this link: www.cadcamcurriculum.org

New KS3 Curriculum for Design and Technology

The new National Curriculum website has been expanded to include National Curriculum Online and National Curriculum in Action and is a useful starting point for information to help you introduce the requirements of the new curriculum.