Technology at St Bede’s has undergone some changes this year, with new staffing and some physical changes to our buildings to facilitate our new courses. Following the junior curriculum review which occurred a few years ago, the Technology faculty has continued to develop and modify its junior courses. Using feedback from students, we continue to strive to create courses that are engaging and responsive to the needs of all students. At a senior level, courses continue to be updated to meet the needs of our students and we are currently preparing for national changes to NCEA across our subject areas for Year 11 in 2024.

This year we welcome James Harris and Robert Capaldi, who have joined us from Cashmere High School. Hard materials at St Bede’s has traditionally been wood-based, but we are pleased that James and Robert bring with them skills and understanding around multiple materials, including metal. We are excited at the prospect of students developing knowledge of different materials and applying them to projects in creative ways.

To accommodate a growing interest in hard materials at St Bede’s, the school has invested in upgrading our senior workshop with new flooring, a welding bay, new extraction unit and access to an outdoor courtyard from our hard materials classroom. The school has also invested in an adjoining building converting it into a second workshop, mainly used for our junior programmes. We also have a dedicated Food Technology theory classroom next door. We are grateful to the school investing in these spaces, which ultimately results in lifting the quality of technology education at St Bede’s.

We welcome JC Cajita as our teacher in charge of Digital Technologies. JC joins us from Auckland and brings with him a breadth of skills and knowledge that has already extended the possibilities of what students can explore in Digital Technologies.

In Food Technology, David Neighbours has joined our team, teaching junior and senior Food Technology, and Cheryl Murray has taken over the role as Food Technician, supporting our staff in the foods department.

Food Technology

The food department is always a hive of activity with the boys relishing the opportunity to learn new skills and devour their finished products. There is, of course, an abundance of learning that takes place besides gaining life skills in the kitchen. The junior courses enable the boys to explore, experiment, work collaboratively and evaluate food design ideas before developing prototypes. The Year 9 students focus on modernising Kiwiana classics or transforming a humble burger into one that is infused with flavours representing a different culture. Year 10 students have had the opportunity to develop their own sports nutrition bar or discover how science is integral to successful food products.

Design and Visual Communication (DVC)

Junior DVC

This is the second year that the revised junior DVC courses have been taught at St Bede’s. The new courses have tried to increase the practical application of design and design thinking to compliment design theory and traditional design drawing. As we better understand how boys learn and the changing needs of our students, we have been able to introduce more group work, physical modelling, and the use of computers in design. We also look to personalise projects around students’ hobbies, interests and culture to engage students in learning.

Year 9 projects include designing characters and buildings and collaboratively designing a village using Minecraft. They also explore the benefits of research and modelling to improve a water-propelled rocket and develop sketching skills when drawing architecture.

Year 10 students have enjoyed group work designing and testing skyscrapers to resist wind, understanding how designers theme their work, and how culture can be brought through design. They have also looked at different processes or ways you can approach architecture and the design of products.

Senior DVC

The senior students have just completed their first project this year. In doing so, they have developed a better understanding of how to go about architectural design as well as developing new skills and techniques to communicate their design ideas. The screenshots in the gallery below show some of the amazing work seniors are doing this year.

Materials Technology

This year, the hard materials programmes are being updated to include a wider range of materials and encourage students to test these materials to better understand their application as part of their designs. For example, in the Year 9 Structures project they use a 10 tonne hydraulic press to see how the structure behaved when under load and made comparisons between each group's prototype. The group work allows students to collaborate and learn from each other, as well as learn to work in a team environment.

Year 10 have been developing electric vehicles to meet certain performance targets – to go off-road, or to drift. Students then evaluate their designs to see how successful they have been.

The junior courses aim to design products that are fit for purpose and for students to learn from both failures and successes.

The Year 11 senior hard materials students are nearing the completion of an exciting project, designing and making a ukulele. The students have designed and personalised the shape of their ukulele and in Term 2 have been building the critical elements that make up the musical instrument. This is an exciting project that develops valuable skills, such as bending wood using jigs and accuracy of construction, to ensure that the ukulele will work. Other senior classes have completed an outdoor two-piece chair and have been testing and trialling design ideas, working towards the building of a final prototype.

MTC extra-curricular - Automotive

Year 9 students Findlay Gibson, James Franken and Liam Molander have been working after school, as well as one lunchtime each week throughout Term 2, with the aim of creating a car that could be entered in the Rangiora show burnout competition in January. To this end the boys, under the guidance of Mr Capaldi, are aiming to fit a V8 engine and change up the driveline to create the power to make some smoke! They have removed the original engine and gearbox (1200cc, 40hp) and have used a plasma cutter to cut the firewall to fit the bigger engine. There is a lot of problem solving still to do (as there always is) when trying to put a big engine in a small car, but they will persevere and have been lucky with advice and help from local businesses in the community. A special thanks to Kevin at Royce Clive Engineering on Blenheim Rd. This has been an exciting addition to the technology department and the boys are learning a range of problem solving and practical skills around cars…. and in case you are wondering, no it’s not going to be road legal.

Digital Technologies (DTC)

Over the past two terms, the Digital Technology (DTC) students have been immersed in an enriching learning experience, honing their planning, design and programming skills across various technology platforms. In Year 9, they explored the world of game development using Scratch, gaining valuable insights into different concepts. The students in Year 10 ventured into website creation through coding and even had the opportunity to develop their own phone-accessible apps.

In Year 11, they delved deeper into programming, working on developing websites connected to databases and are now exploring the realm of text-based game creation using Python. For the first time in St Bede's history, students in Years 12 and 13 were empowered with the freedom to choose their pathway, whether to refine their programming and web design skills or embark on an exciting journey in game development using Unity or a platform of choice. This shift has placed the students at the wheel of their learning, driven by their interests and passions, truly igniting their potential for a promising future in the digital world.

Please enjoy the gallery below, which showcases more of the work from the Technology faculty.