ECT in Schools

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Introduction

Welcome to Design and Technology at The Radclyffe School, Oldham. I am David Taylor and I am responsible for systems and control.

This case study describes the exciting and sometimes demanding process of improving systems and control, design and technology and indeed the entire school over the last five years.

I joined The Radclyffe School as an NQT in September 2003. I am currently acting KS4 manager within the faculty and have previously managed KS3.

The school has approximately 1,400 pupils on roll aged 11 – 16. Many of our pupils come from areas that have high levels of social deprivation with 28% of pupils entitled to free school meals.

In addition, 38% of our pupils come from ethnic minority groups.

I will describe the improvements we have achieved in teaching and learning, facilities and resources in the time I have been here.

	When I first started at the school the technology block was a large, cold, unattractive box. The ‘design’ was a 1960s open plan space with the systems and control area linked to both the resistant materials and the art areas. I am sure that you will be able to imagine just how hard it was trying to compete with the noise coming from nearby classes.
Original Teaching and Learning Area

Design and technology was organised on a ‘traditional’ carousel system, with the pupils doing one 11 hour systems and control Unit of work in each of Y7, Y8 and Y9 – with all the ‘traditional’ problems of rushed work, lack of design opportunities, and little opportunity to form a relationship with pupils.

Only four laptops were available in the systems and control area which meant that the use of ICT with whole groups was impossible. It was limited to some pupils using Crocodile Technology and PCB Wizard at KS4.

Original manufacturing area

Superficially the results for Electronic Products and systems and Control at GCSE – 26% at A* - C – were not too far out of line with the 31% average for the school. However, we operate a banding system with three levels, and the electronics/systems GCSE option was only available to the higher band. So in fact theses results were poor.

In all projects the pupils simply assembled a fixed circuit. Bought in cases were used so ‘design’ was limited to adding some decorative graphics. By Y9 the pupils saw systems and control as nothing more than soldering.

At GCSE level electronics was taught very traditionally with lots of theory and pages of information copied from various sources. The ‘products’ were simple MDF boxes.

The coursework projects were produced by pupils looking a various circuits from books and magazines, selecting one (without any clear understanding), making it and hoping that it worked.

Making a Start

I realised when I started in September 2003 that there was a great deal that needed to change. I have always believed in trying to get pupils to make real design choices when producing systems and control based projects. It happens in other material areas in design and technology, so why not in systems and control?

Of course these opportunities do not (and should not) be confined to product design. Pupils should also be making choices about how their electronic system works. I was convinced that this would be extremely motivating for pupils and that it would improve their ability to develop real solutions to particular design problems.

At first I wanted to change everything immediately but I soon realised that I would have to do things one step at a time to preserve my sanity, so I decided to focus first on the facilities, ICT and KS3.

Fortunately The Radclyffe School had just gained Technology College status and so there was some funding available to support this.

	Work began on improving systems and control (along with other technology areas) in September 2003. The aim was to make the room look and feel bright, attractive, clean and inspiring, and to enhance facilities for both designing and making.
Refurbished Teaching and Learning Area

	The first priority was to get rid of the open plan nature of the faculty building by adding walls and doors to create rooms. This made a huge difference. The decoration was also improved with new wall painting, flooring, trunking, desks, chairs and workbenches.
Refurbished Manufacturing Area

Once this was completed new wall displays were added to create a colourful and stimulating learning environment. As well as standard wall displays showing examples of work etc. a symbol wall was created and key words for D&T displayed around the top of the room. Finally the whiteboard was moved onto a sidewall and a smartboard placed at the front of the room.

“ You don’t need to worry about doing any design in electronics – we do that in other areas of D&T!”

I knew that the work at KS4 was limited but I felt that the key to improvement was to lay good foundations at KS3. So I discussed ideas for development in this area with colleagues.

When I emphasised the needs for design in electronics, one colleague’s comment was: “You don’t need to worry about doing any design in electronics – we do that in other areas of D&T!”

I decided that the best way forward was to try a new Unit of work that would demonstrate how design could be integrated with electronics and that would start to break the cycle of low expectations of both pupils and staff.

The Unit that I decided to replace was the steady hand game in Y8. I wanted something that would give the pupil experience of alternative input and output devices to the switches and LEDs that were all that they had seen previously at KS3 and that would incorporate some product design.

The idea I adopted was the ‘Drawer Detective’ – a security device for a drawer or bag that would sound a buzzer if the drawer was opened. This was based on work by Tony Fitzgerald of Hyde Technology College where I had done my teaching practice. The illustrations below are from Hyde.

The circuit used a light sensor input, a transistor driver and a buzzer output – all new subsystems for the pupils.

As an introduction to the Unit I included focussed practical tasks investigating alternative input and output devices (though the PCB that the pupils actually used in the project limited them to a light sensor input and buzzer output).

The Unit also included much greater opportunities for product and aesthetic design, such as the net on the left.

I was pleased with the progress that I had achieved in this, and I also tried to open up design opportunities in the other Units at KS3 and at GCSE, even though it was not possible in the time available to make fundamental changes to these.

I found that Y7 were quite receptive to this – they had no previous experience of systems and control. The GCSE group were more resistant – they had already formed an idea that electronics was ‘just soldering’, but I got away with telling them: “This is GCSE now – you have to raise your game.”

The big challenge that year, and for some time, was Y9. They had already spent two years on the old style ‘electronic craft’ projects and they wanted to know “Why are we doing this drawing stuff? This is supposed to be electronics.” There certainly were days when I wondered if I was in the right job.

But I knew from the results in Y8 that it was possible to engage pupils in design integrated with electronics. So I made sure that the head of faculty and senior management knew what Y8 were achieving and I made that the basis of my requests for enhanced resources for the following year.

Enhancing Y7 and Y9

	I was convinced that, if I was going to achieve significant progress, the ICT facilities available would have to be radically enhanced from the four laptops available. On the basis of the progress achieved with Y8 I persuaded the school to allocate 14 laptops, with a wireless link to the school network, to the systems and control area.
	The major benefit of this was that pupils at KS3 (working in pairs) could now use ICT in systems and control – including circuit simulation and investigation with Crocodile Technology PCB design with real-PCB. The approach I adopted was to introduce them to PCB design at KS3, but to use a school-designed PCB for the actual projects. Related to this I was able to bring an old CAMM 2 machine out of retirement and, using PCB Design and Make as a link to real-PCB, KS4 pupils were able to produce their own PCBs without needing the kind of close supervision necessary if they were using an etch tank.
	At GCSE level pupils could develop their design portfolio electronically, mainly using PowerPoint. This meant less time spent on ‘neat nonsense’ and a more satisfying portfolio for pupils without expending a lot of time.
	I decided to continue my policy of enhancing KS3 and retired the Y7 fuse tester and the Y9 cycle safety light. For Y7 I developed a ‘Cyberlight’. This was a torch based on an ultra-bright LED. The pupils conducted research into existing products and learned to model circuits using Crocodile Technology and how to develop PCBs. Pre-bought cases (to save on time) were modified by the pupils to house their PCBs.

In Y9 I replaced the cycle light with a toothbrush timer. This was still based on a 555 timer circuit but now there were more opportunities for:

I was pleased with the progress during the year, but I knew that I would need further support from the school if I was going to make improvements. In particular I needed to have more ICT facilities so that pupils could all make use of circuit, PCB, PIC and general purpose software whenever necessary.

So I continued to show faculty and school senior management what the extra resources already allocated had made possible at KS3. My head of faculty (David Pritchard) provided a lot of support and also funding for me to do what I wanted.

I found I had a second natural ally in Jane Wernick who was an AST, deputy head of faculty and was working to raise expectations throughout the school.

When I showed her the pupil projects from Y7 and Y9 her comment was: “Some people say our kids can’t do that quality of work!”

In the same year the senior management agreed to end the situation where electronics/systems and control was only available as an option to the higher band and we moved to a scheme (which has continued to the present) where:

I have not actually made a lot of changes at KS4. My main focus has been on getting things right at KS3. The most important adjustments at GCSE have been:

More KS3 Changes

	In the following year, on the strength of improvements achieved, I was able to successfully make a case for improved ICT provision. The ICT facilities for graphic products were being upgraded and, because I did not need powerful computers for electronics, I was able to inherit their 14 desktop PCs to add to the laptops. Now at last I had a situation where ICT could be easily used with whole groups, and was available whenever it was needed.
	In addition to the extra computers I obtained funding for Control Studio and Circuit Wizard software. I found these invaluable for encouraging and supporting systems-based design.
	Pupils were now able to start electronics work by trying out system blocks with Control Studio, then move on to Circuit Wizard to investigate circuits and produce PCBs with the same basic ‘shape’ as the original block diagram. To strengthen the CADCAM work we purchased a Roland Modela CAM machine and retired the elderly CAMM 2.
	Even though the Cyberlight had only been introduced into Y7 a year ago, I felt that it offered only limited design opportunities so I replaced it with a ‘Night Light’ project. I got the original idea from the Spring 2006 Edition of Electronics Education. It is now available as a kit from Rapid. Whereas a lot of similar projects that I have seen focus on the product design side, the emphasis here was very much on the circuit design. The pupils used ‘chooser charts’ that I produced to select the most appropriate input (a range of switches or a LDR) and output devices (a lamp or various LEDs) for the system, modelled their circuit with software and then auto-routed a PCB layout which was produced using the Roland Modela CAM machine.
	I was concerned that the KS3 scheme of work did not include any work on programmable control and links to mechanical systems. Now that we had ICT facilities for a whole class I decided to abandon the ‘Drawer Detective’ from Y8 and replace it with work on using Logicator linked to SmartBox interfaces and a range of pre-built mechanical models.

In Y9 I kept the existing Toothbrush Timer (based on a 555 IC) but I experimented near the end of the year with one group using a PICAXE08 as the processing block, to see how well the pupils coped with this. The results were encouraging and gave me confidence to plan further major changes for the following year.

The End of the Carousel

The following year saw major improvements in the organisation of KS3 across the whole of design and technology. For some time we had been concerned that our carousel system was giving pupils a rushed and superficial experience and we changed to a new system:

This reorganisation was an opportunity for me to reconfigure systems and control at KS3. I decided that for the 20 weeks now available I would develop two new Units of work – an introductory one that would establish some key knowledge and skills, plus a second Unit which would introduce the pupils to programmable electronic systems.

For the introductory Unit I developed the idea of ‘Electronics without batteries’ originated by Torben Steeg. The idea of this was to use ‘supercapacitors’ (very high value capacitors), charged up from the USB port of a computer, as a substitute for disposable batteries.

One very relevant issue that this obviously raised is the importance of sustainability and avoiding waste. The supercapacitors store enough energy to power low power output devices for about 15 minutes.

The original idea was to use this as the basis of a LED torch, with an ultrabright LED. But, to encourage some system thinking and resourcefulness right from the start, pupils explore different electronic products that use USB power before being given a chooser chart with a list of inputs and outputs that they can select from (push switches, tilt switches, LEDs, and buzzers).

They then choose a context for their project. Some might design and make a USB powered torch, others a personal alarm and occasionally we get some quite unique ideas.

Although the pupils all use the same PCB and develop a similar product, they have some ownership of the direction of their project and they find this quite stimulating.

Torben’s suggestion that lead to this Unit are available on the Nuffield D&T web site together with other articles on sustainability, cross curricular links and modernizing D&T.

Some of the materials I use for this Unit can be downloaded from this web site:

The PowerPoint file ‘Electronics without batteries’ is used by the pupils to keep an electronic record of their work
The file ‘USB Torch’ is the Circuit Wizard design for the circuit and the PCB.

For their second KS3 project pupils produce a PICAXE based ‘Cyberpet’ project. The pet has two LED ‘eyes’ and a piezo sounder ‘mouth’. It can be programmed to respond to touch (via a push switch) or light (via an LDR). Pupils have the design freedom to decide how their pet will ‘act’, and use Crocodile Technology to develop flowchart programs for this purpose.

This project is based on the PICAXE Cyberpet kit available from Revolution Education.

The Big Move

The next big change for everyone at The Radclyffe School saw the opening of a brand new school building, built as part of the PFI project in Oldham.

Prior to detailed work by the architects the senior management of the school visited various Technology Colleges and the D&T staff discussed the course we ran at that time, what we wanted to run in future and how we wanted to organise learning.

	The D&T suite has outstanding facilities. In addition to a dedicated systems and control room equipped with extensive ICT, the faculty has access to a CAD suite, a graphics suite, two resistant materials workshops, two industrial food kitchens and a textiles area. There are over 100 computers in the faculty for pupil and staff use. The faculty also benefits from a dedicated PPA room for staff and a spacious multi-media preparation room.
	Because the rooms are large there is plenty of space to fit in all the required equipment and also maintain a sense of space. One thing that was central to the design of the new room was the ICT facilities. In the old school I had gradually built these up over a period of four years from just four laptops when I arrived, to eventually having almost one computer per pupil at the close of the old site.
	I wanted to ensure this development continued and so the new room is equipped with 24 brand new PCs. In fact, the school as a whole now has nearly 700 computers. This means as a school we can provide a PC for every other pupil at any time.
	In addition to the ICT areas a large soldering desk was built into one side of the room with appropriate trunking and plug sockets. A CAD/CAM area was also incorporated with a Roland Modela used for the production of routed PCBs.
	Displays were very important in my old room and the walls had been covered with displays of pupil work, circuit symbols and NC criteria in ‘pupil speak’. I wanted my displays to be an important part of the new learning environment. The school itself made a decision to ensure that displays remain fresh by insisting that all displays be changed every half term and be largely based on pupil work.
	At KS3 I have developed an entirely paper free experience for pupils, with a large variety of online resources (such as the input/outputs quiz shown on the left) being developed by our faculty virtual teaching and learning environment developer. Every faculty in the school has their own dedicated virtual teaching and learning environment developer and as a result this is an area which is developing rapidly across the school.