Technical Awards - Design and Technology video transcript

Technical Awards: Design & Technology 

Ben Galvin – Qualifications Developer

We’ve developed an exciting suite of new Level 1/2 Technical Awards to complement our new GCSE Design and technology and GCSE Food preparation and nutrition. And the four which we’ve developed are Fashion and textiles, Materials technology, Visual communication and Food and catering. Learners who are more practically minded get a chance to shine through the Technical Awards although they are as equally robust as a GCSE.

Learners will get a practical, hands-on learning experience and learn through doing and applying the skills which they’ve learned to real-life situations. Based upon the feedback from industry we’ve designed these qualifications to include not only the skills relevant to the physical material area but also transferable skills such as communication and teamwork. Unit 1 will give learners the opportunity to master 12 core skills which are set out in the specification and demonstrate their competency at each of these skills through a series of mini projects.

These will include things like surface embellishment for Fashion and textiles, digital technology in Visual communication, and things like forming, bending and laminating for Materials technology. Unit 2 allows learners to put into practice the skills they’ve developed in Unit 1 through an extended making project, which will be based on a brief released by AQA.

For example, in Visual communication this may be designing a set of promotional materials for a hotel in their town or city, or in Fashion and textiles, designing an item of clothing for a particular target market, for example children. As part of these courses learners will develop transferable skills. In the Design and technology suite these will be collaboration and teamwork and communication.

Unit 3 is an externally assessed written exam of an hour and a half and it will contain multiple choice and short answer questions with one extended response at the end. And learners will be assessed on their knowledge of the materials that they’ve studied, the properties of those materials; they’ll also learn about commercial practice and industrial practice, how things are done in the real world in a commercial and industrial setting.

To look at the specification in more detail and also sign up for updates please visit aqa.org.uk/technicalawards