D&T options, advice please

[Tigerblue]

My daughter has come home with her D&T option choices for Year 9. She likes the thought of being an Interior Designer (failing some form of design, book writing (she has a creative mind) or playing the violin. I appreciate she needs to keep her options open, but some advice would be appreciated.

She can choose three out of Electronics, Graphics, Food Technology, Resistent Materials Metal, Resistent Materials Wood & Plastic and Textiles Technology. She's sure she wants to do textiles (does anyone know what this covers by the way?) and doesn't want to do Electronics. Has anyone any other thoughts on what could be a good choice from graphics, food technology or resistant materials wood & plastic or metal.

Food Tech is basically Cookery.

Resistant Materials is what you probably remember from your schooldays as Woodwork and Metalwork.

Graphics sounds like it would be a good fit, particularly if she likes art. It's posters, printed packaging, brochures, logos.....designing graphics and text etc....I can see that being useful for her.

but with ALL OF THEM : look at the course content split between making things, writing about making things and written exam

DD is doing textiles subject and has utterly hated it

DS wanted to do resistant materials, till we realised that "making stuff" was only 30% of the marks

I agree with talkin (waves) re resistant materials DS2 thought he might like to do it till he discovered making things was not a large part of it. DS1 did food tech although he has learnt to cook very well it was an absolute nightmare, I've spoken to other parents whose DC's did it and they all agree, you need to be super organised, your DC needs to be as strong as an ox to cart hundreds of ingredients cake stands table cloths etc back and forth to school and bring the finished product home without damaging it (ideally you need to be able to pick them up) and it's not cheap either.

Ah yes "food tech" with questions like should you hold a knife by the blade in the exam paper

and when DD did a cooking competition thingy, she beat loads of food tech students because they were not learning higher cooking skills ....
the best bit of it was the free meal for all of us at Lainston House.

OP
you should be able to have a look at all the course material - DS chose his options back in February - it was quite eye opening.

I thought food tech had a lot in it about business models & types of packaging, not just catering.

DT graphics is very much about making physical things (including posters). It's not that computer oriented, although design can be done on a screen.

My DS1 did some out dated food tech GCSE that few others do. We had to provide a boned neck of lamb so that they could learn how to debone it.

They have a similar system at my dds school - they choose 2 DT subjects for study in Y9 and then they can do one of these for GCSE.
She had a slightly different list though.
My dd did choose Electronics although they call it Systems and Control and has quite enjoyed it - has been soldering and building circuit boards etc. She was the only girl who chose it though - most of her friends chose Textiles and Food technology. In Y9 this seems to have been mostly the practical skills for food and designing and making for textiles.
I would also recommend Graphics as an option as stated by others, they do activities such as designing packaging and lettering etc. My dd would have loved to take this as a GCSE option, but it isn't available at her school. It can involve using IT design packages (2D and 3D).
HTH

Thank you for your replies. She was anxious to get her options in quickly as friends in other sets have been told the pupils who return their forms the quickest are more likely to get their choices. She's chosen Textiles and Graphics thinking more from the design/general knowledge she may gain and Food Technology more to get a bit more experience of cookery. From what's been said here, it looks as if these options will then be reduced again at GCSE level, so at least she can choose the one most suited to her at the same.

That sounds grossly unfair if they operate a first-come-first-served system about who gets which options. I would phone school to confirm that.