Last Thursday it was a real privilege to walk around a number of really impressive lessons in the Design and Technology Faculty at Bushey Meads School. Across all classrooms there was a huge array of different lessons taking place – many of them based around highly engaging practical, computer based and carefully planned written tasks. All students were behaving in an exemplary manner and were fully engaged.

In one Year 10 lesson it was really impressive to see an array of state-of-the-art equipment being used to design and make a mood light. The teacher and Learning Assistant were fully and effectively supporting the learning of all students. There was a lot of independent learning taking place and all students knew what to do and how to make good progress. Clearly excellent routines for learning in a practical context had been embedded and students were also able to explain all the detailed health and safety rules they were expected to follow

In a Year 11 lesson students were working hard on their GCSE practical coursework task and the quality of both the written work on computers and in books was exemplary and supported some excellent achievement. There was a very positive atmosphere in the classroom and high expectations were being set and met by all students.

Across a number of Year 7 lessons I saw students working on PCs and learning about the health and safety aspects of using a circular drill, making fantastically creative mobile phone covers in textiles, carefully chopping ingredients for making vegetable soup in Food lessons and designing keyrings on the computers. All books I looked at were also well looked after and presentation expectations were high. Overall the behaviour for learning and achievement across all design and technology lessons which was inspiring to see.