Planning Level 2 DVC with Year 12 Students

Today, I continued the conversation with the 2 year 12 boys who have agreed to help with the
planning of next year's Level 2 DVC course.
The first post about this is here.

I had 2 questions for them today :-

1. Should the flow of the course follow the standards, so the work for each standard is completed as a block or should it follow a more natural, design process path?

Their answer for this surprised me in a way. They opted for the work being blocked so that the work for each standard is together. They said that this would make it clearer to see what was needed to achieve each standard.
I understand their reasoning for their decision but does this mean that I have failed to build the design process into my course as the supporting sructure in the past and made the planning too dependent on the standards (teaching to the test?).

2. What product do you think should be the focus?

This year, we did lighting design.
Last year we did glassware and the packaging to go with it.
We discussed the situation that would be the focus of the brief, which is the school cafe that is open to the public on a Wednesday and run by the students.
The boys thought that glassware would be a more suitable product, and possibly extending it to include more cafe tableware, like table numbers, plates etc....
This will give opportunity to produce 2D and 3D design drawings and be able to make models of design work for development.

This continues to be a very interesting experiment with the students helping with the planning. Their viewpoint on things is very eye opening for me. I am trying to give them the questions to discuss together without me for a while so they are not just saying what they think I want to hear.

One of them asked today :-
"so Miss, if this course doesn't work next year, is it our fault?" ....
They are so funny