This programme focuses on the use of group work in the classroom. It examines this technique as a useful means of encouraging creativity, sharing ideas and collaboration. The programme is based on the experiences of four teachers from Queens Park Community School in north London, a typical inner-city comprehensive. Jayne Downs uses Snowballing in Year 7 Food Technology - arranging children into ever expanding groups to evaluate aspects of a range of fruit juices. Head of Department Aubrey Muchamore, who readily confesses to never having used the techniques 'in all my years of teaching', begins a module to design and build an A6 paper dispenser, using groups to evaluate the work of an earlier group, and in Graphics and Structures, Srdjan Vasic forms Year 9 into groups to build a load bearing bridge from plastic straws and masking tape.

Video Series: KS3/4 Design and Technology
Release Date 2005