Design & Technology Summer School - 6th & 7th July 2017

Published 10th July 2017

Following months of planning our Fourth Design & Technology Summer School ran on the 6th & 7th July from the state of the art, newly refurbished facilities of De Montfort University, Leicester.

This year, we possibly ran one of the most exciting and practical agendas to date.  Old faithful, inspiring trainers who attend every year, coupled with some fresh faces to add to our expert presenters, we really did have high expectations of how the event would unfold. We were obviously not disappointed. With over 300 teachers, presenters, consultants and educational suppliers in attendance over the 2 days, it was once again an event full of positive feeling and inspiration, which promoted valuable learning and teacher networking.

Day 1 began with a keynote from Diana Choulerton, Lead HMI for D&T for Ofsted, which looked at dispelling the myths surrounding inspection. Diana said "we break down the divides we create through materials and the tasks we set". The Keynote on day 2 was delivered by Mike Brown from Siemens, who presented a speech on Industry 4.0. An inspirational presentation describing how Industry 4.0 and disruptive technologies are challenging and  impacting on everything we are doing and how we do it. Mike said "Continuity and industry relevant projects which contextualise learning are so important ". He outlined how the science & maths parts of STEM have generally remained the same, whereas technology and engineering aspects have moved at a staggering pace and will continue to do so.

Delegates attended workshops, from the awarding organisations, who delivered their individual D&T GCSE specifications, followed by presentations focusing on technical qualifications and A Level changes. Also running was a fun and practical workshop by Scott Bradley, working his magic with food science, a concrete masterclass from Kerry Truman of Nottingham Trent University, sessions on the future of CAD, exploring Fusion 360 Splicer, Crumble, managing the 1st Year of the new GCSE, as well as an inspirational session by Jenny Dhami, entitled Being a D&T teacher is like playing a game of Monopoly..

Other notable workshops which ran throughout the day, gave teachers the opportunity to try new things and get their hands dirty: STEM into Action in D&T, Let them Design, Engineering Skills, User Centred Design, Creating a Conducive Environment for D&T, 3D printing, Using Apps in D&T, Fiddling, Tinkering, Modelling and Design, Fabric Design & Construction, the Textiles Industry, Planning and Digitally Orientated Workshops for the Future. 

Teachers were given the opportunity to chat to exhibitors throughout, take part in university tours and attend a prosecco and canapes networking evening.

Picking on comments on feedback sheets for workshops

"extremely engaging and useful"

"so many great ideas to take away"

"it was the best workshop i've been to in years!"

"Relevance to real life teaching situations"

A special thanks goes out to De Montfort University in Leicester for opening their doors to us, the facilities and support throughout has been fantastic. Thank you also to our events sponsors, Eduqas, Edexcel, AQA, Autodesk, Rapid Education and Vex Robotics.  

Events like this remind us why we all teach Design and Technology! Teachers get fired up with inspiration to take back into the classroom. Bring on September 2017!