GCSE Design and Technology: new EDI resource and support guide

Published: Tuesday 6 Sep 2022

In June 2022 we announced that we were adding 12 new, diverse designers to our GCSE Design and Technology (8552) specification ready for first teaching this September.

Adding these exciting new designers is part of our ongoing commitment to building more diverse choices in our Design and Technology qualifications.

To help you feel more confident when considering which of the new designers to include in your teaching, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve created a new resource and support guide. The resource has a dedicated page for each new designer, and includes a biography and further teaching resources so you can find out more about them. There’s also additional resources for students.

Manisha Vadgama and Harriet Paterson, Design and Technology teachers who worked with us on the resource and support guide, said:

“These new resources are all about helping teachers make super relatable lessons for young people today, and highlighting creative Design and Technology that’s all around us right now. I’m really passionate about highlighting all kinds of diversity, whether it’s culture, religion, LGBTQ+, or disability. I hope these new resources will help teachers to create lessons that enable students to really connect with the designers, preparing them for work in a diverse society and embarking on careers that go on to enrich the British design industry.”

“We have created this resource to introduce students and teachers to the ground-breaking work of 12 new designers who have recently been added to the GCSE Design and Technology (8552) specification. The resource is intended to be used as a starting point for further exploration into the work of these pioneering designers and to inspire a new generation of innovative and influential creatives who will follow in their footsteps.”

You can find the new resource and support guide on our GCSE Design and Technology qualification page in planning resources.

At AQA, equality, diversity and inclusion is important to all subjects and qualifications that we offer, and not least to Design and Technology. You can read more about the work our team has been doing in our blog on what equality, diversity and inclusion means for engineering a more diverse industry.

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