Pre-planning
Barbara Knight:
"My main objective was that students work with a client on an authentic project – nothing made up."
"I don't need to let the achievement standards drive the student projects – because they just drop out of the students' work – they're already there."
Barbara's approach to the NCEA Year 13 client project is to have her students work with one client all year, where all of the achievement standards are embedded into this major project of work. "It's a pretty meaty project, there's a lot in it" says Barbara. They do their conceptual design project first and then, after a revision process and rewriting of their briefs for implementation, produce the one-off solution. After client approval of the final conceptual design the students revise their brief, working towards Achievement Standards 90792 (3.2), 90686 (3.6) and 90687 (3.7).
There were ten students in the 2006 Year 13 Materials Technology class, two of whom - Eloise Jack and Sarah Bowerman - were hand picked to take on the wearable art at Te Papa project. Barbara says there was a lot riding on such a public project - the school's reputation, her own reputation, as well as the professional risk the store managers were taking in trialling the project – but she never let the girls know this, because she didn't want them to worry about it.
Barbara initially had a meeting with Colin and Te Papa Store display organiser, Jan Morris, where they talked through the display environment requirements and set a date for the girls to visit. Jan would be their key client.
