Engineering Studies

Course summary

Engineering is the field that is constantly changing the world with inventions and solutions that affect everyone's lives. Offered as a single award qualification, pupils undertake three compulsory modules and an optional unit covering a range of technical skills and industrial practices. Compulsory units Unit 1 is a two-hour examination. The 80-mark paper is made up of a mixture of mathematics and physics questions that focus on engineering principles and their applications within given design scenarios. Unit 2 is an internally assessed project-based team engineering task. Learners must work together, communicating effectively to complete the design and manufacture of a specified product considering effective people management, health and safety, and appropriate material and process selection. Unit 3 is externally assessed through a set task completed under supervised conditions. Learners are given a case study to prepare one week in advance before a supervised period of eleven hours where they will follow a standard development process interpreting a design brief, generating initial ideas, preparing a design proposal, and evaluating it against appropriate design and engineering requirements. Optional units A range of optional units are available and are selected to focus on the needs of the cohort undertaking the course. Areas that can be covered include undertaking a specialized engineering work placement where the learner chooses a field of specific interest related to their chosen career pathway, computer-aided design and manufacture, welding, machining processes, and fabrication.