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GCSE Product Design

So I've just ended Year 10 and heading onto Year 11.

In Product Design during Year 10, we haven't done much. We have been producing designs for the children's educational toy we will be making, and then moved on to doing coursework on the computers.

As a class, we're on our 7th teacher since we started the course at the start of Year 10, which really doesn't help at all. As I said we haven't got much done and I'm not very confident that I'll pass this GCSE.

How does this GCSE actually work? We haven't been told. I want to know the percentage the coursework stands for, the percentage the product we make stands for, and how much the final exam stands for.

Thanks.

Btw, who's just finished GCSE Product Design? How did you find it overall? How was the final exam?

Reply 1

Tuya

I finished it last year with an A*, and I'll be honest - I found it very easy and enjoyable.
Assuming you're doing AQA, and since resistant materials (which I did) is essentially the same as product design, I think coursework accounts for 60%. Just a read of your post suggests you're fine with English and grammar - so that's about 10 free marks already. If you stick to a consistent theme for your presentation, you should get a great overall score for your folder, which is ample for passing.
True, I spent hours and hours on perfecting my folder(I enjoy that kinda stuff), and did spend a lot of time after school to finish my project, but if you go about planning it properly, you should have no problem in getting an A*. I kinda over-complicated my design by including stuff like curved wooden doors, hence the extra time spent.
Try to use posh English, as I find that it is appreciated - making the examiner think you know exactly what you're on about. And as for detail in your folder - go OTT - it gets you the marks. You might want to try things like doing a poll on TSR as part of your survey - which I'm sure the examiners will love (provided students are your target market).
PM if you need any more help...

Reply 2

leinad2012

Original post by Eamonnk

Hi, just going into A2 and product design/ resistant materials was easily my favourite subject at GCSE with Business Studies coming a close second!

I did the GCSE in year 10 so it was a few years ago, so I'm not sure which exam board it was. However, they all seem to have the same structure, with the coursework being 60% and exam 40%. On my GCSE the coursework was split 50/50 for make and written work, so the actual make/ physical product was 30% of the whole GCSE.

Having lots of teachers sucks, at GCSE I only had one and it was great, because he had a specific style/ industrial background when it came to designing, whereas in my AS I had 2 teachers, which is good in some ways (because you get different views/ criticisms on your designs) but can be a right pain in the a*** because they give different tips and often contradict each other. Having 7 teachers must be impossible!

If you want a good grade be prepared to do LOADS of after school work; I stayed back an hour or two a week for a about 4 months to make sure mine would be done to a good enough quality (though I did complicate matters by using dovetail joints on all four sides of my box (which took about 2 months to file down to be a perfect fit).

My tips would be to learn how to use Google Sketch up because it helps ALOT with developing ideas and use of CAD counts for quite a lot iirc.

Also, maybe watch a few videos on youtube for different types of sketching and detailed drawing (like 1st point drawings/ 3rd point drawings/ 30 60 90 drawings, that kinda stuff).

Having a clear project/ target audience is also really important, neither of mine were very clear and it really complicates matter down the line if you don't. Good English in the written stuff is good too.

For the exam I'd just say revise TONS and learn the mechanical and physical properties of different materials and the definitions for them, get a revision book too and read a few pages per week. When I did GCSE and even AS I was the only person who revised a lot for the exam and stayed behind doing the project, and it definitely showed in the results; at GCSE I was the only person to get an A* in my class, which was great.

Just have fun I guess, and the more you put in the more you get out