James Dyson
Inventor and manufacturer of the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner.

Learning for the technological world
Design & Technology prepares Caldicott boys to participate in tomorrow's rapidly changing technologies. The subject allows them to become autonomous and creative problem solvers, as individuals and members of teams, who respond to design challenges by developing a range of ideas and making products and systems. The combination of practical skills and an understanding of aesthetics, social and environmental issues, function and industrial practices allows them to evaluate design solutions and technological advances. Through design and technology they become innovators, as well as discriminating and informed users of products.

Design and technology at Caldicott enables boys to:

Understand how design and technology affects our lives
Contribute to the use and development of technology in our society through informed participation
Relate their personal experience to the work of commerce and industry.
The boys start Design and Technology in the First Form where they work individually or in groups on a range of designing and making activities. They consider how products are used, and they plan what has to be done and identify what works well and what could be improved in their own and other people's design. They draw on knowledge and understanding from other areas of the school curriculum and use ICT in a number of ways.

As they progress through the school they begin to work out their ideas with more precision, taking into account how products will be used, who will use them, their cost and appearance. They develop understanding by investigating products and gain an understanding of how professional designers and industry work. Computer Aided Design and Manufacture (CAD/CAM) is used as an integral part of the designing and making.

Of value to all

Design and technology is an important area of study for all young people, not only for those that go on to enter specialist courses at university. An important feature of the subject is that it makes immediate and practical use of knowledge and skills from other subjects, notably science, art and mathematics. Consider the effects of technology on the development of society - and our own lives - and appreciate the balance of advantage and disadvantage in those developments.

Preparing for tomorrow's world

Design and technology is a challenge, it requires initiative, an inquiring mind, determination, the careful management of time and resources, and a sense of responsibility for making decisions and taking action. The opportunity to be able to work with others and to understand the implications of what they do helps them to become informed consumers, understanding the balance of issues involved in compromise and in the search of quality at an affordable cost.

This personal experience will help them to develop their own system of values and to understand those that operate in society.

Facilities

We are fortunate to have both a studio where the boys can do their designs as well as a workshop where they can use a variety of hand and machine tools to produce them. A CAD/CAM centre has been introduced where the boys can use a design program to create computer drawings which can then be sent to a milling machine to be cut out automatically.