[Design and Technology] (no subject)

[Katie Harris]

Hi Paula,

In the 3 years I've been at my school I have noticed a big shift in getting more girls participating in Technology subjects. I have 5 girls in my year 11 class, and at the 8 and 9 level am getting a 50/50 split of boys and girls. I think a big part of this has been to do with designing a curriculum with less of a traditional woodwork approach and more of a product design focus. I make sure students refer to the subjects as Product Design and work on folios with students from year 8 upwards (girls tend to excel at folio work). We have CAD as a separate class and I usually only get a few girls in these classes (usually 20-30%). I also put a lot of it down to the students seeing a young female running the department, which hopefully empowers and gives confidence to some of the shyer types of girls.

That said, we don't offer textiles, so our numbers may be buoyed by the creatively inclined girls who would normally choose textiles have no other choice than to pick Product Design.

I think it's great that you are giving this serious thought. Creating coursework, a learning environment and an attitude towards my subjects that appeals to both boys and girls is definitely something I strive to achieve.

Cheers,

Katie

Sent from my iPad

On 15/09/2013, at 6:45 PM, "paula connolly" <paulaconnz at yahoo.co.nz<mailto:paulaconnz at yahoo.co.nz>> wrote:


Dear all,
I am trying to gather some information on girls in Design and Technology.
At present at Strathmore, we are struggling to get more than 20-30% girls in our classes, particularly from year 9 up. We have revamped our programme many times. We have no metal room but do work with a range of materials in the spaces available. The staff are predominately women but we are limited in the number of classes we can run by the workshop space available.
The school has about 5% more boys than girls and textiles classes are run as a separate material from year 9.
I would love to know what percentage other schools have and what you credit it to.

Cheers
Paula



Paula Connolly
Product Design nd Technology Faculty
Strathmore Secondary College
Strathmore

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