Technoloy
In Technology, students learn to be innovative developers of products and systems and discerning consumers who will make a difference in the world.
Beliefs
Students need to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable them to use new and existing technologies, to follow the design process, and to be informed, critical, and creative when solving problems.
Learning Goals
Through our teaching and learning programmes our students should:
- Learn practical skills as they develop models, products, and systems.
- Learn about technology as a field of human activity, experiencing and/or exploring historical and contemporary examples of technology from a variety of contexts.
- Learn about structural, control, food, and information and communications technology , and biotechnology through a variety of contexts (strands):
- Technological Practice - students examine the practice of others and undertake their own. They develop a range of outcomes, including concepts, plans, briefs, technological models, and fully realised products or systems. Students investigate issues and existing outcomes and use the understandings gained, together with design principles and approaches, to inform their own practice. They also learn to consider ethics, legal requirements, protocols, codes of practice, and the needs of and potential impacts on stakeholders and the environment.
- Technological Knowledge - students develop knowledge particular to technological enterprises and environments and understandings of how and why things work. Students learn how functional modelling is used to evaluate design ideas and how prototyping is used to evaluate the fitness for purpose of systems and products as they are developed. An understanding of material properties, uses, and development is essential to understanding how and why products work the way they do. Similarly, an understanding of the constituent parts of systems and how these work together is essential to understanding how and why systems operate in the way they do.
- Nature of Technology - students develop an understanding of technology as a discipline and of how it differs from other disciplines. They learn to critique the impact of technology on societies and the environment and to explore how developments and outcomes are valued by different peoples in different times. As they do so, they come to appreciate the socially embedded nature of technology and become increasingly able to engage with current and historical issues and to explore future scenarios.