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Teacher guide

CCEA GCSE Construction revision

These activities are mapped to CCEA GCSE Construction and the Built Environment 0006. Eight of them, eighteen to twenty-two minutes each. **Two of the eight are about drawings**, which is more attention than that subject usually gets from a revision resource and is right for this specification. CCEA assesses computer aided design as a controlled assessment unit of its own, so the commands, the components and the conventions are examinable knowledge rather than software skills picked up by use. The other activity on the same theme is the reverse operation: reading a drawing somebody else produced, deriving a cutting list from it, and costing that list. A candidate who can do both has the transferable half of this qualification.

This page lists what we actually have for CCEA GCSE Construction and the Built Environment 0006. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

Drawings, in both directions

A construction drawing is a language, and like any language it has to be read as well as written.

CCEA takes both halves seriously enough to assess computer aided design as a controlled assessment unit in its own right. That makes the conventions examinable knowledge: what a line weight means, which components have standard symbols, how a plan relates to a section, what has to be on a drawing before it is any use to anybody.

One activity covers producing, the CAD commands, components and conventions. One covers reading, taking a drawing and deriving a cutting list and a cost from it.

The second of those is the one most worth setting. Interpreting a drawing accurately enough to order the right materials is the single most practical skill in the qualification, and it is where imprecision shows up immediately: a misread dimension becomes a wrong cutting list becomes a wrong cost.

Neither activity teaches your department's CAD package. Software is learned at the machine, and the knowledge the paper asks about is not the software.

Health and safety gets the most room

At twenty-two minutes, health, safety and legislation is the longest activity here.

In construction that is the correct weighting. It is the area with the most named regulations, the most specific duties, and the least tolerance for a vague answer. A student who writes that workers should "be careful" has said nothing the mark scheme can credit.

The rest of the specification

The built environment and materials covers what things are made of and why. Construction technology covers how they go together. Structural forms and occupations covers the shapes buildings take and who does what on a site, which is the part that connects the subject to the careers behind it. Sustainable construction covers the environmental half, which has grown in weight and continues to.

Craft project knowledge covers what a candidate is expected to know and record around the practical work, rather than the practical work itself.

A qualification with little published behind it

CCEA is the only board offering this, it is taught almost entirely in Northern Ireland, and commercial revision material for it is close to non-existent. Eight activities is not a course. For a lot of students taking this subject it is the only interactive revision that exists.

The neighbouring CCEA subject is CCEA GCSE Engineering and Manufacturing, which shares the drawing and materials ground from a different industry's angle.

If you also teach an English board's equivalent, AQA GCSE Engineering covers overlapping process and material content.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

No CAD software teaching. The conventions are here, the package is yours.

Nothing for the practical craft work beyond the knowledge around it.

Eight activities is one pass. A student who works through all of them has used everything here.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Construction and the Built Environment activity for CCEA

8 activities, all mapped to CCEA GCSE Construction and the Built Environment (0006).

See all 8, by topic

Try it with your class

CCEA Construction and the Built Environment 20 minutes

Interpreting Drawings, Cutting Lists and Costs

15 steps, 10 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A drawing is at a scale of one to fifty. A wall is drawn forty millimetres long. What does the scale tell you about the real wall?

CCEA Construction and the Built Environment 20 minutes

CAD Commands, Components and Conventions

15 steps, 10 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

In CAD, which of these is a modify command rather than a draw command?

CCEA Construction and the Built Environment 22 minutes

Health, Safety and Legislation in Construction

15 steps, 10 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

Before any work starts on a new task, what should be done first?

Common questions

Is the CAD unit covered?

The knowledge behind it is. CCEA assesses computer aided design as its own controlled assessment unit, and one activity covers the commands, components and drawing conventions it expects. Operating your department's software is not something a web page can teach.

What else is drawing-related?

An activity on interpreting drawings, cutting lists and costs, which is the other half of the same skill: reading somebody else's drawing accurately enough to order materials from it.

What is covered overall?

Eight activities: the built environment and materials, construction technology, sustainable construction, structural forms and occupations, health safety and legislation, CAD, drawing interpretation, and the craft project knowledge.

Which is the longest?

Health, safety and legislation, at twenty-two minutes. In construction that is proportionate: it is the area with the most named regulations and the one where a vague answer earns nothing.

Can the practical craft work be revised?

Only the knowledge around it. One activity covers what the craft project expects a candidate to know and record. The bricklaying, joinery or painting itself is your workshop's.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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  • AQA GCSE Engineering revision Every live AQA GCSE Engineering (8852) revision activity, covering the written paper's vocabulary and processes at a uniform sixteen minutes each.
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