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AQA Design and Technology: September 2025 updates

Welcome to our Autumn 2025 newsletter

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Published

Monday 1 Sep 2025

Welcome to our Autumn 2025 newsletter

We hope the new term is off to a great start for you and your teams. As always, this is a busy time of year, so please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself – I’m Sean Britton, your new Subject Lead for Design and Technology, Engineering, and Food Preparation and Nutrition at AQA.

Over the next year, I’ll be your main point of contact, while Louise Attwood continues to lead on STEM. That said, I’m sure Louise won’t be able to resist getting involved from time to time!

I bring over 18 years of experience in secondary education, having served as Head of D&T in two schools and held senior leadership roles focused on curriculum and student development. My journey with AQA spans nearly 16 years, including the last five as a Team Leader moderator and examiner for A-level Product Design.

I’m genuinely excited to bring this experience into my new role and work closely with you to support high-quality teaching and learning across Design & Technology, Food, and Engineering. I look forward to collaborating with you across a range of educational settings to help ensure all learners thrive.

We’re looking forward to receiving the Government’s Curriculum and Assessment review when it’s published. In this email you’ll find all the information to get you started this term.

If any members of your team would like to receive subject-specific updates, they can easily sign up for AQA subject updates , so they’re always informed and part of our community.

Here’s to a successful autumn term!

Sean Britton
Subject Lead for Design and Technology, Engineering and Food Preparation and Nutrition

myAQA

Sign up to myAQA to get quick access to resources, CPD training and events, Data Insights (our results analysis tool) and much more this autumn term. Make sure you’ve filled in your myAQA profile including your role and subject specialism so we can instantly start connecting you with the tools, training and resources most relevant to you.

Once you’re logged into your myAQA account, you can also access Centre Services.

Free CPD courses and events

For autumn 2025, we’ve developed a range of free professional development training courses to help you improve your knowledge and classroom confidence.

Preparing for 2026

Our Preparing for 2026 courses are available throughout the autumn term, offering subject-specific support including non-exam assessment (NEA) guidance, marking criteria, and practical classroom activities.

Marking non-exam assessment (NEA)

Are you looking to improve the accuracy of your NEA marking this year? Why not use our free Teacher online standardisation tool during a departmental meeting to check your marking is in line with our lead moderators?

myResources

Find everything you need on myAQA.

Make sure you’ve got the materials and guidance to create engaging and effective learning experiences. Whether it’s schemes of work, community links or teaching guides, we’ve got what you need.

Design and Technology

Along with the many NEA portfolios available on Teacher online standardisation, we've also collated 9 GCSE D&T NEA answers and commentaries folders which have been marked by the lead moderator.

New Resource: Teaching Sustainability and Climate Change in GCSE Design and Technology

In collaboration with the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), we've developed a comprehensive Teaching guide: Climate Change booklet to support teachers in delivering the sustainability and climate change elements of the GCSE Design and Technology specification. This resource identifies relevant content, suggests lesson questions and activities, and provides links to useful online materials. The resource can be found in teaching resources on our website.

Food Preparation and Nutrition

The updated GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition Schemes of work (SOW) are available in Teaching resources on our website.

myNetwork

Curriculum Connect: Exploring summer 2025

Join the Design and Technology team where we’ll share high-level insights into the data from the summer series, key findings from the examiners reports and areas for improvement to support student progress. These sessions are available to book now on our website.

Calling all MAT Leads for D&T

We’re building a national network of MAT Leads in Design and Technology – and we’d love to hear from you.

This is a fantastic opportunity to connect, collaborate, and get involved in shaping subject support across MATs. If you're a MAT Lead for D&T, or know someone who is, please get in touch.

Email Sean Britton at D&T@aqa.org.uk to be part of the conversation.

Community Links

Looking for resources to support your teaching? The learned societies offer a wealth of free resources and CPD courses. Here are a couple of examples we think you might find useful.

Snack-tember 2025!

Taking place in September 2025, the British Nutrition Foundation’s Snack-tember is all about healthier, more sustainable snacking. Exciting materials will be available to help children and young people, age 5-16 years, explore their current snacking choices, and learn about, make and try new snack options! Register now for access to the resources on the British Nutrition Foundation website.

JUST ONE Tree

Free environmental resource packs to inspire your learners to help save the planet

Inspire your learners to take climate action and grow a greener future with JUST ONE Tree Day – a fun and educational non-uniform or wear something green day where every £1 raised plants a tree.

It's free for schools to take part, comes with curriculum-linked environmental resources, and helps pupils feel empowered rather than anxious about the planet.

Over 240,000 students have already taken part, helping plant more than 380,000 trees across Africa, Asia and South America.

Run by non-profit JUST ONE Tree – proud partner of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and Eco-Schools England – the initiative tackles climate change head-on by growing forests, regenerating oceans and educating future generations.

To sign up and unite with schools across the world and get your free resources visit the Just one tree website.

mySupport

Introducing… Free@3! – Subject Support when you need it

Your Subject Support team will be running 1-1 Teams calls throughout the autumn term to support you with all things AQA D&T, Engineering and Food Preparation and Nutrition! If you’ve questions about our exams, specifications and resources, or just want to know more about our excellent CPD opportunities, use our booking link to secure your Free@3 slot!

Post-results services

Log into myAQA for post-results services to find information and deadlines and our easy summary guide.

AQA NEA Advisers

Each school or college has a dedicated NEA adviser. Our advisers are experienced teachers and moderators who can offer guidance and support throughout the academic year on delivering NEA.

They’re there to answer your questions, explain specification requirements, share teaching ideas and discuss general processes, planning and approaches to NEA tasks.

Their details may have changed from last year – so you can find them on Centre Services by going to ‘Pre-exams’ and then clicking on ‘NEA Advisers’. If you do not have an assigned adviser, please contact eos@aqa.org.uk.

Please be aware that contact details are confidential and must not be shared with third parties including students and on social media. Further information about our commitment to data privacy can be found in our privacy notice.

The use of AI within assessments

JCQ’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use in Assessments: Protecting the Integrity of Qualifications document provides teachers/assessors involved in delivering JCQ qualifications with the information they need to manage use of AI in assessments. All relevant staff need to be aware of and familiarise themselves with the new guidance and instructions. If AI misuse is detected or suspected by your school or college, and the declaration of authentication has been signed, the case must be reported. 

Remember, if you have any learners who use a word processor, it must have all internet connectivity disabled. This is to help prevent, among other things, the potential misuse of AI in exams.

Using AQA resources for AI tools

AQA does not allow anybody (including schools and colleges) to use any AQA materials to train Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools or technologies. This includes question papers, specifications, mark schemes, reports, teaching resources and other such materials. While we understand how useful these tools are, putting any AQA material into an AI tool would be in breach of copyright law, and AQA policy.

Student Advisory Group – recruitment for 2025/26

We’re looking for learners to join our Student Advisory Group to help us make key decisions about the future of exams. We’d love to hear from learners who’ve completed AQA specification GCSEs since 2024, as well as from those taking AQA AS and A-levels. We also really want to hear from students taking our vocational qualifications, or vocational qualifications with any other exam board, as long as they have sat at least one AQA qualification.

Since the Student Advisory group began they’ve; represented the student voice each year at the Parliamentary Youth Reception, shared their views at the Curriculum and Assessment Youth Shadow Panel, fed into our Curriculum and Assessment call for evidence response, given insights on AI in the Classroom at the 2025 Festival of Education, helped with reviewing books for our English literature set texts list, and much more.

So if you know any learners who you think would be interested, please pass this on. Full details of the role and how to apply can be found on our website. Applications open on Monday 8 September and close at 5.00pm on Monday 22 September 2025.

Contact our team

Help is never more than a click away. If you have a question, we’ve got the answer.

  • Email dandt@aqa.org.uk
  • Call us on 0161 957 3334 8.00am – 5.00pm, Monday to Friday.
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