Core Skills Analysis
Design and Technologies
Michaela spent a work experience day with her Grandad, who worked as a cabinet maker, and experienced a workplace connected to making and design. The activity introduced Michaela to cabinet making as a skilled occupation and helped build awareness of how practical work can turn materials into useful items. Spending time with a family member at work also gave Michaela a chance to learn through observation and direct experience. The activity supported curiosity about how design and making contribute to everyday life.
HASS — Work and occupations
Michaela experienced a day connected to her Grandad’s occupation as a cabinet maker, developing a real-world understanding of one type of work. The visit helped Michaela connect a family member’s role with the broader idea that people use specialised skills in their jobs. By taking part in work experience, Michaela explored how learning can happen beyond a classroom and within a workplace. This may have encouraged reflection on the different kinds of work people do.
Tips
Tips Extend Michaela’s experience by inviting her to sketch an everyday cabinet or piece of furniture and label the features that make it useful. Together, explore how a designer might plan an item for a particular person or purpose, then compare a few examples of furniture at home or in a library catalogue. Michaela could interview Grandad about the skills cabinet makers use and turn the answers into a short illustrated “career profile.” If appropriate, make a simple model from paper or recycled card, discussing how the shape and parts support its intended use.
Book Recommendations
- How a House Is Built by Gail Gibbons: An illustrated introduction to the stages, people, tools, and materials involved in building, offering a useful connection to skilled practical work.
- The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires: A lively picture book about planning, making, testing, and revising an invention—an engaging companion to exploring design and craftsmanship.
- Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty: A story that celebrates creativity, persistence, and making, encouraging young readers to explore how ideas can become practical creations.
Learning Standards
- Design and Technologies — Years 7–8 (WACAO): The experience connected Michaela with a practical design-and-making occupation. It provides a context for exploring how designed solutions meet needs and how technologies and skills are used in everyday work. No specific achievement standard can be confirmed from the activity description alone.
- HASS — AC9HS7S01: The work experience offers a meaningful starting point for developing questions about occupations and how people contribute through work.
- HASS — AC9HS7S08: Michaela could communicate what she learned about the cabinet-making occupation using relevant subject vocabulary. This is a possible extension of the experience, rather than an activity explicitly stated in the description.
Try This Next
- Sketch a piece of furniture and label its parts and purpose.
- Write five interview questions for Grandad about cabinet making and create a short career profile.
- Design a paper furniture model for a specific user, such as a small bookshelf for a young reader.