A Day in the Life... John Donnelly; DTResources

A typical day:

5.45am – I dread my alarm going off, I have done my best to be a ‘morning person’ for the last 25 years but always struggle to ‘rise and shine’. After getting ready, I make a ‘coffee to go’ and then start to load up my car and drive to the school I’m working in today.

08:00 – 12:00:

This morning, I am delivering a course at a local school, on the use of Fusion and 3D Printing.  The aim is to help teachers support students with the development section of the NEA.  This session is part of a series of bookings the schools made.

I arrive at the school early to get set up, build the 3D printer with the team and then get started on delivering the session.  For this session I try to cover how a student can produce a quick sketch, add it to a canvas on Fusion and use this as a starting point for an idea to develop.  From this we start to design a possible outcome, quickly produce the CAD renders, orthographic drawings, SLT files and set a 3D print running.  I’m back in this school again next week to continue the session further as this is part of a block booking.

12:15 – 12:45

Next, after a very quick bite to eat, is an online meeting with the CFO of a large Trust. This meeting is to finalise a contract for DTResources to put together a five-year rolling CPD program. I have audited the D&Ta machine H&S training needs of all teachers in the Trust, and have put together a training schedule to ensure that each teacher in the Trust is up-to-date with their D&Ta H&S machine training.

12:45 – 13:15

The next online meeting is with a teacher that leads D&T across a large national Trust.  The meeting is short consultation to support the planning of a D&T conference that is coming up soon.  Next year I’ll be delivering a presentation at this conference, but this year DTResources is providing a selection of components to help support the delivery of an exciting KS3 programme.

14:00 – 15:30

Next up, I have booked to meet with the technician and principle at a local UTC.  This meeting is to write a large order of parts needed to ensure that 8 lathes and 4 milling machines are fully working.  Two of the lathes are in need of a complete rebuild and many other machines need a wide range of parts ordering before I come in to work on them.  I have the machine manuals and exploded diagrams of most machines and use this to contact the parts team to ensure that all parts are ready for when I come in to start this job.

16:00 -17:30

During the day quite a few orders from the DTResources website/Purchase Orders have come in.  Dealing with orders normally takes me around two hours a day, during this time I need to package orders, send invoices and ensure that all parcels are ready to be collected.

17:30 – 19:00

I normally cook dinner, eat with my family and put my children to bed

19:00 – 21:00

At the start of every evening, I need to email people that I have had contact with during the day. I always send a ‘post Teams meeting’ summary of what we discussed with any actions that are needed before I visit a school next.

If there has been quotes requested for training or maintenance, I’ll send these back and also reply to other emails I’ve had from teachers/finance teams. 

Tomorrow, I have a full day at a school delivering a D&T Portable power tools course, this is one of my favourites to deliver, but is the course that requires the most equipment for the day.  I check I have the paperwork for the course printed, check that my digital resources are correct and that the tools/materials I need are ready to load into my car in the morning.