Welcome to Design and Technology with Mr Peter Taylor. 

The College takes great pleasure in introducing this remarkable teacher who enables his students to produce truly masterful creations.   

Peter Taylor comes to Cornerstone with a  Bachelor of Arts (hons) in Design and Technology from Loughborough University of Technology in England.  Since completing his tertiary education he has had over 15 years of teaching experience.  

Peter is responsible for the Design and Technology subjects at the College.  Each year group he takes has a slightly different focus and allows for a progression in skills once students have mastered some of the basics.  In Years 9 & 10 some work with metal occurs, but his major focus is teaching students to work with wood.  One underlying element that is apparent in each of his classes is the critical design process.  Peter will guide his students in the process of producing accurate drawings or utilising computer aided design before they move on to the production phase.  

Peter believes he has the ultimate job, where he gets to play with “boys toys” every day!  On a more serious note, he truly loves the design process and the engagement of his students in this.  In his own words; “It is fantastic when students start to put different designing skills together to create an idea and then move on to manufacture and build something unique.”  Peter believes it is very important his students to develop skills in neatness, organisation and self management.  He states that whilst this sounds very general, if students learn to work neatly and accurately and combine this with an ability to organise themselves and follow through with a task then they are setting themselves up for success.  The work produced by his students is quite remarkable, and often parents comment on the quality of work their children create.

One aspect he particularly appreciates about his classes, is that students see relevance of other core subjects in their work.  They discover that basic mathematics skills are actually important. The process of measuring and marking out requires accuracies of 0.5mm and smaller. This attention to detail is necessary to produce high quality items.  He understands the necessity of having the correct materials and tools to complete a task well – even down to having the right pencils!  Outside of the classroom, Peter encourages his students to have home internet access for the research of design projects.  During the design and technology journey, his students will come face to face with some form of computer aided design and the College is able to provide students with some free software that they can use at home if they have an interest in this area.

Peter is a very approachable and likeable member of the team at Cornerstone who derives a great deal of pleasure from seeing his students succeed.  He takes obvious delight in the creative process and products created within his classes. He also has a great sense of humour.

When asked about what else he would like us to know about his classes he said; “‘Nothing. It’s mostly a secret so that those who show up have lots of fun. If too many people work out how good it can be down in the workshops we will get overcrowded and somebody somewhere may outlaw what we do or create some rule that messes it up. So Shh!”