Skills you learn from Electronics (Year 11)

Electronics builds a mix of analytical, design, and practical skills - designing systems to meet a need, analysing data, applying theory to real circuits, hands-on building and fault-finding, and technical communication. This lesson plan will help you to show Year 11 students the skills they've built and which subjects build the same ones.

This lesson is designed to be delivered in 30 minutes as a teacher-led classroom activity.

This activity supports the following frameworks:

  • Gatsby Benchmark 4

This activity is suitable for Year 11 and features careers linked to the following subjects:

  • Electronics

This is one of three lesson plans for teachers covering Electronics with Year 11 students - whether through standalone GCSE Electronics or the systems strand of GCSE Design & Technology:

These lesson plans will help you show students how Electronics connects to their future careers.

We recommend using this lesson plan at the end of the autumn term. By this point Year 11 students have a year or more of electronics work behind them and are beginning to weigh post-16 options. Recognising the skills they've built - and seeing where the same skills are developed in other subjects - helps them choose a complementary set of A-Levels, T-Levels, or training routes.

Learning objectives

  • Students will name specific skills they've built through GCSE Electronics, with examples.
  • Students will recognise other subjects that build the same skills.
  • Students will consider how that shapes their post-16 choices.

Before the lesson

  • You will need a computer connected to the internet and a classroom screen.
  • Open the What can you do with Electronics? page and have it ready on the screen.
  • Review the Skills that Electronics builds section and think of recent teaching examples for each one.

During the lesson

1. What have we studied over GCSE? (5 mins)

  • Ask students to call out projects, circuits, or techniques they've covered.
  • Write the suggestions on the board and highlight any patterns.

2. Skills that Electronics builds (15 mins)

  • Bring up the What can you do with Electronics? page on the classroom screen.
  • Review the contents of the page with students so that they understand what it covers.
  • Scroll to the Skills that Electronics builds section and work through each skill in turn.
    • Ask students which project, circuit, or technique from the board involved that skill.
    • Share your own teaching examples if students are stuck.

3. The same skills in other subjects (10 mins)

  • Ask students to think about where else they've built these same skills.
    • Which other subjects ask you to design or build something that has to actually work?
    • Which other subjects involve applying theory to real-world problems and measuring the result?
    • Which other subjects ask you to communicate technical ideas using diagrams, equations, or graphs?
  • Go round the class, asking each student to name one skill and one other subject they've built it in.
  • Close by reminding students that choosing a good set of post-16 subjects isn't just about which ones they enjoy - it's about which ones compound the skills they want to take into work or further study.

After the lesson

  • Share the What can you do with Electronics? page with students and their parents/carers:
    • www.coffeewith.xyz/subjects/what-can-you-do-with-electronics
  • Encourage parents/carers to explore the page with their child and to discuss the contents.
  • Use the School Tools / Activities feature to record the lesson activity:
    • Activity name: Year 11 - Skills you learn from Electronics
    • Activity type: Linking curriculum learning to careers
  • Read the follow-on lesson plan: