DT

Intent: “Know the Way”

Our Design and Technology curriculum involves two important elements – learning about the designed and made world and how things work, and learning to design and make functional products for particular purposes and users.

Our pupils will acquire and apply knowledge and understanding of materials and components, mechanisms and control systems, structures, existing products, quality and health and safety.

We aim for D&T to bring learning in other curriculum areas to life providing real life and motivating contexts for literacy, mathematics, science, art, PSHE and ICT. The skills learned in D&T will link with and support learning across the curriculum. For example, knowledge about the properties of materials helps in science and the practice of measuring accurately helps in maths. These skills help in IT through the children’s use of computer control and, naturally, in art and design.

Our Design and Technology curriculum aims to develop children’s skills through collaborative working and problem-solving, and knowledge in design, materials, structures, mechanisms and electrical control. It encourages them to be creative and innovative, and to think about important issues such as sustainability and enterprise.

We aim for our Design and Technology curriculum to provide a context for head and hands to work together. For children, having to think about specific purposes and users for their products is much more demanding than simply following instructions to make something. Children are encouraged to think, decide and plan, as well as go and create making the final results of their work rewarding to them.

Through progression our Design and Technology curriculum aims to provide opportunities for our pupils to develop their capability. By combining their design and making skills with knowledge and understanding they learn to create quality products.

We aim for this to be an inspiring and creative curriculum area where children enjoy making decisions for themselves and doing practical work. They will be inspired to create products they can see, touch – and even taste – for themselves, developing a sense of purpose and pride in themselves.

We aim for our DT curriculum to provide a firm basis for later learning in the subject and a platform for developing skills in literacy and numeracy and even to set the seeds for choosing inspiring careers in the fields of Design and Technology in later life.

Implementation: “Show the Way”

Food and Nutrition units are taught in each year group.  Teacher’s adhere to our Food Hygiene policy carefully when teaching these units and include Food Hygiene with in the unit of work.

A DT unit of work will be taught in each term to ensure full coverage of the National Curriculum requirements.

Each unit of work builds progressively children’s skills and knowledge in the three core activities:

Investigating and evaluating existing products activities

Focused tasks in which children develop particular aspects of knowledge and skills

Designing and making activities in which children design and make ‘something’ for ‘somebody’ for ‘some purpose’.

These three activities are combined in sequence to create our Design and Technology projects.

Teachers are given ownership and flexibility to plan for Design and Technology; often teaching DT as a block of lessons to allow the time needed for the children to be critical, inventive and reflective on their work. 

Teachers develop their units of work using the planning principles from the DATA Projects on a Page Curriculum to ensure rigour and progression supplemented with a range of resources from other providers, e.g. Oak Academy, Plan B and Twinkl as appropriate

Each project from Year 1 to Year 6 addressing the principles of designing, making, and evaluating and incorporating relevant technical knowledge and understanding in relevant contexts.

To make sure pupils designing and making activities are valid teachers make sure they implement the following 6 principles

·       User – first and most important – who is the user – who will use this product?

·       Purpose – what task or function will the product perform?

·       Functionality –how are the products going to work? What do they need to do to be successful?

·       Design decisions –are pupils able to make their own choices even if this means making mistakes. Mistakes are not irreversible and are part of the learning?

·       Innovation –students need to be encouraged to try things that are different

·       Authenticity –how believable or real is the product to the pupil and the end user?

Teachers ensure that the relevant health and safety issues related to the tasks to be undertaken are explicitly discussed and implemented.

Where relevant pupils are introduced to specific designers, chefs, nutritionists, etc. helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement and increase the cultural capital from which they can draw in the future

Early Years

There are opportunities for D&T engagement across all seven areas of learning as outlined in Opportunities for Developing Design and Technology in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework 2021 from DATA

Impact: “Grow the Way”

·       Understand the functional and aesthetic properties of a range of materials and resources.

·       Understand how to use and combine tools to carry out different processes for shaping, decorating, and manufacturing products.

·       Build and apply a repertoire of skills, knowledge and understanding to produce high quality, innovative outcomes

·       Understand and apply the principles of healthy eating, diets, and recipes, including key processes, food groups and cooking equipment.

·       Have an appreciation for key individuals, inventions, and events in history and of today that impact our world.

·       Self-evaluate and reflect on learning at different stages and identify areas to improve.

·       Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Design and technology and prepare them for learning in KS3 and beyond

·       Engender positive attitudes to Design and Technology which will leave them open to pursuing these valuable and enriching areas of the economy in their future learning and as a career.

The impact of the teaching of Design and Technology is assessed in a number of ways.

·       Formative assessment by the teacher during the teaching of each unit to inform planning of the next session.

·       Book scrutiny and staff meeting discussions

·       Pupil voice interviews

·       Learning walks