Design, Engineer, Construct!

Design, Engineer, Construct! (DEC!), is an exciting and innovative course that teaches young people about the built environment. Students learn skills linking to a range of construction roles, such as Architecture, Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering, Project Management, Facilities Management, Quantity Surveying and Land Surveying. DEC is delivered to students in KS3 as one of the subjects on a carousel basis alongside D&T and Food. DEC Level 2 is also available as an option that students could choose to study in KS4.

Students carry out projects which see them designing buildings, following the process outlined by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). We are very proud that our students are learning about the built environment from such a young age, including using industry standard BIM (Building, Information, Modelling) software, Bentley OpenBuildings Designer to create and develop 3D models of their buildings. We also endeavour to give our students the best experiences possible and students have the opportunity to visualise their designs using our cutting edge VR headsets.

The DEC course promotes strong cross curricular links with subjects such as Maths, Science, and IT, and educates students about relevant issues such as climate change, encouraging them to be responsible citizens that can think and design sustainably, and students benefit from a real-life application of Maths and Science in their DEC lessons.

An integral and unique aspect of the DEC! course is that we are supported by our industry adopters, Rok. Alongside learning from their DEC teacher, student’s lessons are frequently supported by industry professionals, to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world. We are also able to utilise this industry support to take our students on site visits, where they can see and learn from a real-life application of skills and get a first-hand experience of what a range of construction jobs, such as Structural Engineering and Project Management, look like in action.