In Key Stage 3 design and technology lessons, your child will be a lot more critical while thinking about, constructing and evaluating their designs using a wide range of materials, including textiles and food.

Children become more aware of how professional designers and the manufacturing industry work and they carry out more detailed research. For example, during a lesson about healthy soups, they think about the objective - to encourage people to eat more fruit and vegetables. They must understand the properties of different ingredients so that they can apply this when designing their dish. This may mean classifying foods by their sources (animals, crops and plants, organic, local or imported) and nutritional information (from healthy eating guidelines, for example). They must select ingredients with different functional properties and think about the effects of varying these ingredients (for example, the sensory and cost implications).

Your child will use ICT to evaluate and present information about the choices made, to say whether they met the objective, to show how problems were tackled, and to suggest how any improvements could have been made.

Lesson examples

Here’s what your child might learn in class:

• Year 7s learn about how evaluation informs the design of products. For example, they might explore how the choice of material can help control costs and how product development often responds to the demands of consumers, as with character toys.
   
• ‘Pastry-wrapped sweet and savoury products suitable as a finger-foods' is the design brief given to pupils in year 8. They discuss ingredients and processes that could be used for the product, explaining why they made particular choices.
   
• A teacher disassembles a battery-powered hand-game to allow his class of year 9 boys to see and discuss the circuitry inside. He then shows the boys what materials, components and equipment could be used to make their own games.

Help your child at home

• How well does your child understand the healthy eating guidelines? Test their knowledge by getting them to prepare a simple meal that will encourage the whole family to eat more healthily. Ask them to explain the reasons for their choices.
   
• Next time you’re out, notice the design considerations that have gone into the structure of different types of buildings, houses, bridges and shopping centres. Encourage your child to notice how the needs of those who use the buildings have helped to inform the design.
   
• What's in your cupboards? Get your child to investigate the types of packaging used for products. How are folds, tucks, adhesives, thickness of materials, reinforcements, weight and finish used to affect performance?
   
• Look at the labels from food products to see their nutritional content and claims. Encourage your child to think about the legislation and guidelines that restrict nutritional claims and what would happen if we did not have them?