Dowel Joint

A dowel joint is a butt joint reinforced with dowel rods. This joint is very neat and strong providing you use the strong glue. It is often used instead of a tenon joint if cost comes into consideration. Dowel joints must be a perfect 90 degrees or else the dowel will twist when assembled and it is hard to accurately drill the holes. Dowel joints are most commonly used to join frames, drawers and cabinets

Dovetail Joints

The dovetail joint is made by interlocking two pieces of wood. It is the strongest of all woodworking joints, has a large gluing area, resists being pulled apart, looks attractive and holds together without glue. The dovetail joint can be fairly hard to mark out and cut and if badly done it loses all benefits.

Mortise and Tenon joint

The mortise and tenon is one of the most common joints used by woodworkers and is the traditional corner joint for sturdy frames. It is neat, strong, large area for gluing, it can`t wobble, difficult to pull out and most of the joint is hidden in the wood. It’s hard to mark and cut and has a poor resistance to tension, especially if badly fitted. It will connect at 90 degrees
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Dyscalculia

Dyscalculia is a specific learning disability involving maths skills. It may be difficulty with counting and calculating, understanding abstract maths concept or working with numbers and symbols.

Key characteristics

Children with dyscalculia may have:

• Normal or above average verbal skills and good visual memory for the printed word

• Difficulty understanding maths concepts, rules and sequences, especially involving time and money

• A tendency to make substitutions, transpositions, omissions and reversals when reading and writing numbers

• A poor sense if direction (such as confusing left and right, getting easily lost, losing things) and time (such as often arriving late)

• Difficulty recalling names and faces

• Poor mental maths skills

• Poor coordination when involved in activities requiring change of direction, such as aerobics, exercise and dance sessions

• Difficulty with keeping score in games or working out strategies in chess

Dyslexia and SpLD (specific learning difficulty)

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that affects the ability to read and spell. About 60 per cent if children with dyslexia also have trouble with the sounds that make up words.

Key characteristics

A dyslexic pupil may:

• Use bizarre spellings and have poor phonological awareness

• Frequently lose the place when reading and see blurred or distorted word shapes

• Confuse some high frequency words; such as was/saw

• Reverse letters and number digits beyond the age where this is normal

• Writer words with the correct letters in the wrong order

• Write sequences of letters and numbers in reverse

• Have difficulty remembering a word and substitute other words instead

• Have great difficulty organising themselves and their belongings

• Be unable to remember simple sequences, such as days of the week

• Experiencing problems following oral instructions

• Have poor sense of time and direction

• Make frequent errors when copying especially from the board

• Have some coordination difficulties

• Have low levels of motivation and self-esteem

Hardwoods

Beech - A straight-grained hardwood with a fine texture. Light in colour. Very hard so is ideal to be used where it is being bashed around and used often. Beech is also very easy to work with.

Used for furniture, toys, tool handles. Can be steam bent.

Oak - A very strong wood which is light in colour. Open grain. Hard to work with. When treated it looks very classy and elegant.

Used for high class furniture, boats, beams used in buildings, veneers.