KS4 - Design Innovation
Design and Innovation
Innovative young people of the future
Innovation is essential to the UK’s future economic prosperity and quality of life. It can be defined as the successful exploitation of new ideas. Most new ideas do not come as a flash of inspiration to a lone genius inventor; they come to people with the skills to design, create, and collaborate in creating new things and successfully exploiting ideas.
A key aim of the course is to unlock the talent, energy and imagination of students. Creativity, plus having the confidence and skill to bring ideas to life are what innovation is all about. Our aim isn’t to prepare students for the world we live in now. Our aim is to provide students with a set of transferable skills that will enable them to be effective and inspired in the future.
Students will be taught how to
• Think creatively
Creative thinking can be taught and developed. Our techniques and approaches will encourage lateral thinking and making creative leaps.
• Work effectively in teams
Working well in teams and getting the best out of other people in your team is vital for success in the workplace.
Everything is design
The importance of design is at the heart of everything in this course. Students will be encouraged to think of “design” in a variety of different ways. For example:
• As the specific plans for creating something
• Modelling with the possible and the impossible
• The human intervention necessary to move from one situation to another
Students will be given opportunity to design across a wide range of disciplines.
Practical skills
Over the course of two years students will develop a whole range of creative designing and making skills. This covers a wide range of products including, packaging, point-of-sale display, interior design and 3D product (concept) design.
Relevant ICT skills
Students will develop a wide range of ICT skills. The use of industry standard software will be used (e.g. the Adobe Creative Suite) wherever possible. Specifically students will gain skill with Adobe Flash, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and more...
Real world learning and work experience
A unique feature of this course is that students will work on ‘real’ client projects and briefs in year 11. This gives students a rich learning opportunity and a chance to apply their ideas and skills to real world problems.
Course structure
The course is divided into ‘Graphics’ lessons and ‘ICT’ lessons. The two subject areas have shared topics, themes and areas of learning. The two areas together creates a synergy where the whole is greater than the two parts; learning is deepened in both areas with much broader skills development, richer contexts, and a wider variety of learning approaches and teaching styles experienced by the students.
Each subject area will have responsibility its own summative assessment:
• The formal outcome from the Graphics lessons will be GCSE Graphic products.
• The formal outcome from the ICT lessons will be top-up to double ICT accreditation.
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