Teachers should establish if students have developed robust level five competencies and are ready to begin working towards level six achievement objectives for the technological practice components, and plan learning experiences to progress these as guided by the level six Indicators below.

Brief Development

Planning for Practice

Outcome Development and Evaluation

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Justify the nature of an intended outcome in relation to the need or opportunity and justify specifications in terms of key stakeholder feedback and wider community considerations.

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Critically analyse their own and others' past and current planning practices in order to make informed selection and effective use of planning tools. Use these to support and justify ongoing planning that will see the development of an outcome through to completion.

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Critically analyse their own and others' outcomes to inform the development of ideas for feasible outcomes. Undertake ongoing experimentation and functional modelling, taking account of stakeholder feedback and trialling in the physical and social environments. Use the information gained to select, justify, and develop a final outcome. Evaluate this outcome's fitness for purpose against the brief and justify the evaluation using feedback from stakeholders.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to undertake brief development at level six teachers could:

• provide an appropriate context and issue that allows students to access resources (including key stakeholders) and guide them to take into account wider community considerations
• support students to identify a need or opportunity relevant to the given issue and context
• support students to understand the physical and functional nature required of their outcome
• support students to develop specifications and justify them based on key and wider community stakeholder considerations.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to undertake planning for practice at level six teachers could:

• ensure that there is a brief against which planning to develop an outcome can occur
• support students to critically analyse a range of planning tools that have been used in past practice
• support students to select planning tools that will provide appropriate support for their practice and efficient recording of why key planning decisions were made
• support students to ensure appropriate resources are available (stakeholder/s, materials, components, software, equipment, tools and/or hardware) suitable for their outcome
• support students to use selected tools to manage resources to ensure completion of an outcome.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to undertake outcome development and evaluation at level six teachers could:

• ensure that there is a brief with attributes against which the outcome communicated by the conceptual design can be evaluated, and that there is a more developed brief with clear specifications against which a developed outcome can be evaluated;
• establish an environment that supports student innovation and encourages critical analysis of existing outcomes;
• support students to develop drawing and modelling skills to communicate and explore design ideas. Emphasis should be on progressing 2D and 3D drawing skills and increasing the range and complexity of functional modelling;
• support students to explore a range of materials/components and to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to evaluate and use them;
• support students to undertake prototyping to evaluate the outcome's fitness for purpose and identify any further development requirements;
• support students to gain targeted stakeholder feedback.

Indicators

Students can:

• identify a need or opportunity from the given context and issue
• establish a conceptual statement that justifies the nature of the outcome and why such an outcome should be developed
• establish the specifications for an outcome as based on the nature of the outcome required to address the need or opportunity, consideration of the environment in which the outcome will be situated and resources available
• communicate specifications that allow an outcome to be evaluated as fit for purpose.
• justify the specifications in terms of key and wider community stakeholder considerations.

Indicators

Students can:

• critically analyse own and others use of planning tools to inform the selection of planning tools best suited for their use to plan and monitor progress and record reasons for planning decisions
• use planning tools to establish and review key stages, identify and manage all resources, and to determine and guide actions to ensure completion of an outcome
• use planning tools to record initial plans and ongoing revisions in ways which provide reasons for planning decisions made.

Indicators

Students can:

• generate design ideas that are informed by research and the critical analysis of existing outcomes;
• undertake functional modelling to refine design ideas and enhance their ability to address the specifications;
• evaluate design ideas in terms of their ability to support the development of a conceptual design for a feasible outcome;
• evaluate the conceptual design against the specifications to determine the proposed outcomes potential fitness for purpose;
• evaluate suitability of materials/components, based on their performance properties, to select those appropriate for use in the production of a feasible outcome;
• produce and trial a prototype of the outcome to evaluate its fitness for purpose and identify any changes that would enhance the outcome;
• use stakeholder feedback to support and justify key design decisions and evaluations of fitness for purpose.