Skills you learn from Engineering (Year 9)

Engineering builds a mix of design, technical, and practical skills - designing solutions to real problems, drawing and modelling in 2D and 3D, working with materials and machines, applying maths and science, testing and improving, and planning a project within real constraints. This lesson plan will help you to show Year 9 students the skills they're building from Engineering.

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 9 and features careers linked to the following subjects:

  • Engineering

This is one of three lesson plans for teachers covering Engineering with Year 9 students - whether through standalone Engineering or within Design & Technology:

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

We recommend using this lesson plan at the end of the autumn term. By this point students will have spent time on engineering work this term, whether through standalone Engineering or the engineering strand of Design & Technology - giving them real material to reflect on when thinking about the skills they've been building. Recognising those skills helps students see Engineering as more than a subject to study, and sets them up for GCSE choices in the spring.

Learning objectives

  • Students will understand that Engineering builds a broad range of transferable skills.
  • Students will be able to name 2-3 skills they've developed this term and give examples.

Before the lesson

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

During the lesson

1. What have we studied this term? (5 mins)

  • Ask students to call out projects, drawings, or techniques they've worked on this term - parts they've designed, drawings they've produced, materials they've worked with, things they've made, or fault-finding they've done.
  • Write the suggestions on the board and highlight any patterns.

2. Skills that Engineering builds (15 mins)

  • Bring up the What can you do with Engineering? 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 Engineering builds section and work through each skill in turn.
    • Ask students which project or piece of work from the board involved that skill.
    • Share your own teaching examples if students are stuck.

3. Making it personal (10 mins)

  • Ask students to pick 2-3 skills from the list they feel they've developed this term.
  • Go round the class, asking each student to name one skill and give an example of when they used it.
  • Close by reminding students that these are valuable skills for work and life, not just for exams.

After the lesson

  • Share the What can you do with Engineering? page with students and their parents/carers:
    • www.coffeewith.xyz/subjects/what-can-you-do-with-engineering
  • 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 09 - Skills you learn from Engineering
    • Activity type: Linking curriculum learning to careers
  • Read the follow-on lesson plan: