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St Faith's Prep

Engineering

I believe that by combining the intellectual, creative, practical and social elements of learning, the engineering process enables the solution of problems from the design stage through modelling to evaluation and refinement.

St Faith’s is pioneering the way forward for Engineering taught at primary level. I believe that our bespoke Engineering curriculum offers our children the opportunity to:

  • Work in a team to design practical solutions to problems
  • Draw on their practical skills to construct prototypes and draw on their maths and science knowledge in order to improve the performance of their constructions
  • Harness their creativity and progress their use of workshop machines and hand tools to allow pupils to build their own designs.
  • Our projects explore all forms of engineering: chemical, mechanical, robotics, structural, civil, electrical and aeronautical.

Just some of our projects across the years include:

Year 3
  • Introduction to Engineering: Develop an appreciation of the Engineering Process and introduce core workshop skills.
  • Civil Engineering: The Pyramid Challenge explores how the shape of a structure affects its strength when constructing pyramids from a selection of materials.
  • Mechanical Engineering: Make a wooden puzzle for a child to develop an appreciation of the role of angles and the importance of precision when designing and constructing a wooden puzzle.
  • Electrical Engineering: You can get your hands messy by using Electric Dough to manufacture and explore squishy circuits.
  • Chemical Engineering: In Eco Engineering you investigate whether we can paint and clean using naturally occurring raw materials.
Year 4
  • Civil and Structural Engineering: Habitats. Find out what animals live in your garden and design and build the perfect home for them. There is a focus on measuring and cutting skills.
  • Mechanical Engineering: Simple machines. Investigate the six simple machines and their applications in everyday life. Construct working versions of simple machines out of a variety of materials.
Year 5
  • Mechanical Engineering: Tangram. You design and construct a tangram using only 7 geometric shapes to fit into a square.
    Cams and Gears. Explore how cams and gears are used to provide a change of motion and how these are used in everyday life.
  • Civil Engineering: Bridging the Gap. Explore how the shape of a structure affects its strength when using a variety of materials to construct prototype bridges to span various locations.
Year 6
  • Mechanical Engineering: Gear Up! Explore how gears can increase or decrease speed or change the direction of motion. Understand gear ratios and construct a set of gears that can change the speed of a spinning object.
    Exploring ball projection systems. Explore levers, investigate heights and distances that can be achieved with projectile in order to build and test own design of a ball projection system.
  • Aeronautical Engineering: Kites. Investigate structure, support angles, materials and the mechanics of flight and wind power in order to design and build a single line kite.
Year 7
  • Mechanical Engineering: Rockets. You will investigate the power of propellants by building matchstick rockets. Understand how the principle of Newton’s 3rd Law is key to a successful launch. Investigate rocket flight stability by designing and building air rockets.
  • Structural Engineering: Materials and the Box Problem. Investigate how materials respond to the application of force and investigate different types of joints. Identify a problem and construct a prototype of a practical solution that involves a type of box.
  • Aeronautical and Hydronautical Engineering: Wings. Explore what generates lift, understand that lift is generated by wings and hydrofoils on land and at sea. Build a boomerang.
Year 8
  • Practical problem Solving: I’m an Engineer part 1. Build teamwork skills to design & construct challenging structures that solve a variety of energy use and structural problems. Investigate and construct a simple solar charger.
    I’m an Engineer part 2. Identify the problem and find a solution. Invent and design a practical solution for a problem and construct a prototype of their design.
  • Development of Engineering Skills: I’m an Engineer part 3. Consider what other practical skills could be useful to help to develop problem solving skills.

Liz Oxborough
Head of Engineering

 

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