Project ENTHUSE

Last week saw the launch of The Young Enterprise ‘Tenner Challenge’. We have never launched this in D&T before but I gave the students an introduction in Year 7 Assembly - the turnout was incredible!!! Almost 60 students kept knocking on my door asking if they could join in. At one point I just stood back and watched them all eagerly planning their business ideas - just amazing... ☺️

So that’s it!!! Entries are in for the Home of 2030 Young Persons Design Challenge! Good luck to our Year 7 student teams and our Year 12 student Zoe!!! Wishing them all the very best of luck but most of all, a huge well done for their commitment to learning and building new skills and knowledge outside of lesson time - it’s been a real pleasure working with them. They’ve worked so hard to develop the home of the future whilst tackling climate change - so proud!!!

Today Mrs Sweeney took our fabulous Year 9 students down to the Victoria & Albert Museum, London as they were finalists in the V&A Innovate Challenge! After a shaky start with cancelled trains, the team made it to London.

The team had to present their design to peers and professionals, which demonstrated great courage and resilience.

The prototype was for the category ‘WEAR’. The students created a prototype gilet featuring lots of zips. These zips could be stuffed with other clothing which solved the problems of storage and warmth for the homeless - such an incredible idea!

Although the team didn’t win, they received an honorary mention for their excellent prototyping skills!

Well done to all for taking risks and demonstrating some real problem-solving skills 👏🏼

Oh! And a big WELL DONE to Mrs Sweeney for being awarded ‘Teacher of the Year’ - amazing!!!

I’ve just read this report on Twitter and, although the number of students expressing an interest in engineering careers is on the rise (yes!), there are still misconceptions about what engineering is and the accessibility it has to a diverse range of students (engineering needs diversity!!!). We are trying our best to challenge this and we feel that we’re getting better and better, however, I do find it annoying sometimes when so many ‘STEM’ resources / events, etc turn out to be purely science or maths - what about the rest of it?! 🤔 Engineering puts the science and maths into action - let’s work together on this!!! 💪🏼

https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/innovate

The V&A Museum, London, launched their national competition a few months ago; ‘Innovate’ aims to help students realise the power of, and the opportunities within, the design industry through set challenges. And guess what?! WE’VE MADE IT THROUGH TO THE FINAL!!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting news!!! Well done team!!!

Today our engineers demonstrated great enthusiasm in the first ‘Lego Robotics Club’ - thinking like engineers to show resilience, collaboration and resourcefulness amongst many more skills, they worked hard to achieve their aims to prepare for the national competition..! Can’t wait to see what they achieve next week..! 🤖👍🏼

On Friday we launched our Design Engineering: ‘Architect Club’ at DACA! Over the past few years it has become very apparent that more and more young people are taking an interest in Architecture and the built environment, so we have been working hard to put measures in place so that students can learn skills - such as our Year 7 Technical Drawing project and our Year 8 Architecture project. They’ve been a great success and students are so proud of how their drawing skills and understanding of designing sustainably and responsibly have developed - they are SO talented!!!

So ‘Architect Club’. HM Government, MOBIE, Design Council and BRE have launched ‘Home of 2030’; a competition to afford opportunities to young people and professionals alike to design a sustainable, buildable, safe and comfortable home for our future. We are entering the Young Persons Design Challenge, aimed at 11-18 year olds. Promoted in assemblies all week, we had a good turn-out on Friday lunchtime from students from Year 7 to Year 12! It was lovely to see the excitement of our younger students; some of their knowledge is incredible! Our older students have a keen interest in Architect and know this opportunity will enable them to learn so much more. Exciting times - I think you know by now that we love a good competition 😉

Last week, James from UCLAN came to DACA to run Architecture workshops with our Year 8 Architecture students. They had a great time working in teams to create a structure which had to include one feature from their favourite chosen building - there were some great results! It was so good to see the competitive nature and sheer determination to create the most awe-inspiring structure!

Last night we were able to share our incredibly talented Sixth Form students’ work at our Open Evening, ready to inspire the next generation. I’m sure you’ll agree that there are some incredible pieces of creative work here from our Fashion & Textiles, Graphics and Design & Technology A-Level students!

Last year, we began a Technical Drawing project with Year 7. Although students are generally quick at picking up computer design skills, some struggle somewhat with actually drawing an object, seeing it from different perspectives and being able to quickly sketch down their thoughts and ideas. These skills are essential for any design, engineering or technology related career - not only to be able to draw, but to understand the drawings of others and to be able to interpret them effectively. I’ve been amazed by the students ability to pick up two-point perspective, creating a cityscape including buildings of various sizes, heights and types. They’ve loved it too and can all see how much progress they have made - it’s a joy to teach and watch their determination and success.

This is Adam - he’s pushed himself every week with incredible results. I’m sure you’ll agree..!

Here are a few pictures of some independent home learning too - these were shared with Year 11 to inspire them too!

Well, what a busy first half term we’ve had!!! Lots of new and exciting projects have started including;

~ Tomorrow’s Engineers Lego Robotics Challenge

~ Design Museum - Design Ventura Competition

~ V&A Innovate Competition

The students are working well on their challenges which all require independent thinking, teamwork, resourcefulness and creative thinking to solve specific problems.

Here are a few photos of the teams working on their Lego Robotics challenge; it’s been really interesting to see just how their engineering minds work..!

We did it!!! We ran our Girls in STEM Event at DACA today and it was great - our Girls were enthusiastic problem-solvers who asked questions of our STEM Ambassadors and professionals - they worked hard and had fun! Let’s hope we’ve pushed the button to encourage them to believe in themselves, banish the misconception that ‘engineering is for boys’ and help them to aim high for the careers that they so deservedly belong in - beaming right now ☺️

More images can be seen here..! https://darwenacademy.smugmug.com/Gallery/Girls-in-STEM/

Special thank you’s to:

St Bede’s RC High School

St Paul CE Primary School

Helen Heggie - STEM First

Training 2000

WEC Group

John Grimshaw - Lean into Design

Michelle Faill - BAE Systems

Danny Barry - Inspira

Catherine Ashcroft & Lindsay Gregory - Eric Wright Group

All the staff at DACA who have offered their kind support - thank you.

What a great week! Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone at the site for making me feel so welcome - they really couldn’t do enough! I’ve been taken to various sites to see works such as signalling, new roads, new public spaces and even a water treatment plant. I’ve sat in on progress meetings with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and EWCE Project Managers, Engineers, Site Managers, Quantity Surveyors (the only other woman I’ve met all week!!!), meetings and walk-outs with road surfacing contractors to figure out how best to carry out the works to cause minimum disruption to the local residents and businesses (hugely appreciate what they do for us now!) - it really has been very insightful!

The opportunities for girls also are huge - the people I have spoken to are well aware of the lack of females in the industry and all were really positive about the need to encourage girls into these roles as well as the skills they possess (common sense and an ability to see and solve problems being just a couple..!). Yes, some roles may be more appealing than others and not seem very ‘girl friendly’, but we have to make them aware of these careers to empower them with choices. Let’s show them the opportunities they have and allow them to prove people wrong!

I can actually say that I’ve loved my experience - I think placements such as these would benefit educators of all subjects. I’ve seen so many opportunities for our young people - the job roles with Civil Engineering are vast and varied with great scope for progression - I can’t wait to share this information with our students!

We found another competition project!!! We were planning to run a mini NEA with Year 9 D&T students to encourage more independent learning, resilience and problem-solving skills. Some of the projects this year have proved really successful here and have enabled us to really see how our students think when we step back - the results have been varied, interesting but most of all, have encouraged pride. Whilst we were planning, we came across ‘Design Ventura’ - the annual design competition held by the Design Museum, London for Year 9 students - perfect!!!

On 10th July, Claire Fontenell, Director of Learning for Design & Technology at DACA, travelled down to London to attend the initial CPD day - she loved it!

As well as finding out about the competition requirements, she received resources (which we all love don’t we?!) and got to create a mini project herself - she had 40 minutes to complete the challenge and pitch her idea. Quite impressive don’t you think?!

Today Mrs Sweeney is in London at the Victoria & Albert Museum at the V&A Innovate Conference - ‘Design Skills for a Changing World’. Their aim is to “inspire the next generation of designers, innovators and makers across England” which we all agree is incredible! We are entering our fourth industrial revolution, and the country needs our young peoples’ skills! We have lots of plans in place for the coming year - it’s so exciting..! 🤗

Steph (Mrs Sweeney) was so impressed with the day. She quoted that Tristam Hunt had “some great ideas and understanding of teaching creative subjects”. She also loved an alternative packaging project that they carried out - inspiring..!

And here is the speech from Ofsted’s Amanda Spielman at the Innovate Conference today:

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amanda-spielman-speeking-at-the-victoria-and-albert-museum?utm_source=7a8512f9-39a5-4d39-adc2-b4ad9a872ab8&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate