Design & Technology
Intent
We are committed to providing a high-quality DT education for all our children. By doing so, we will equip them with the knowledge and cultural capital, they need to succeed beyond the school gates in the wider world.
Design and technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. Using creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values.
They acquire a broad range of subject knowledge and draw on disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art. Pupils learn how to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens.
Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, they develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world. As a result of a rigorous enquiry-based approach, all children will know what it means to be a designer, to become immersed in and inspired by DT. Underpinning all lessons is a rigorous focus on developing and securing design and technology skills whilst also ensuring sound progression of knowledge and sequenced understanding of key concepts. As teachers, we aspire to ensure that the skills taught are transferable throughout their time at Manor Fields and further into their education.
We want our pupils to:
- Be creative and confident designers who have the technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world.
- Be critical designers who can be critical designers who are able to evaluate and test their ideas, products and learning of others
- Have a deep well of design knowledge and skills to draw upon. Children to build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users
- Be ethical designers who can discuss and debate the positive and negative impacts of design. Also discussing the effect of what designers put into the fabric of society considering its environmental and societal impact.
- Be informed and capable cooks who understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.
- Be individuals who recognise and celebrate diversity in the world of design.
Implementation
Our curriculum is designed so that, over the course of study, teaching is designed to help learners to remember in the long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.
Each year group studies 3 DT topics per year. Through a variety of creative and practical activities, the teaching in DT gives children opportunities to plan, make, evaluate and progressively build their technical knowledge. By revisiting learning in a range of relevant contexts, we strive to ensure that children have diverse opportunities to deepen their understanding. In addition, we maximise meaningful links with other curriculum areas whenever possible.
In order to develop well-rounded and successful designers, we take guidance from the National Curriculum whilst understanding the need to personalise the curriculum for our children. We expose our children to planned and differentiated lessons that are taught with a clear DT objective. Thanks to carefully planned progression documents, we can ensure that during our dedicated lessons, we can ensure continuity and progression across the key stages.
To ensure depth within our enquiry-based DT curriculum, we believe there are essential components within our termly sequence of learning to ensure our children become resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens.
- Enquiry based gateway question to begin each lesson - We want children to be inquisitive designers who are confident enough to query and investigate. Children are therefore encouraged to generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through talking, drawing, and use of templates and mock-ups throughout the units of learning.
- Explicit subject-specific skills –Children are encouraged to use the full range of DT skills.
An example of this is that they are given opportunities to select from and use a wider range of materials and components, including construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their functional properties and aesthetic qualities.
Impact
To measure the impact of this approach, we ensure that emphasis is placed on thinking and questioning which helps pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of DT.
In DT, impact can be assessed through:
- Children’s design ideas
- Completed tasks and the quality of the finish
- Children’s evaluations of their own and the work of others
- A summative assessment will be completed termly. This informs the Design and Technology coordinator of any further areas for curriculum development, pupil support and/or training requirements.
- Conferencing with children to better understand their attitudes to their learning
- Their use of cross curricular learning during each unit
- Questions asked and answers given during lessons
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Autumn |
Spring |
Summer |
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Reception |
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Year 1 |
Moving parts pictures |
Build structures |
Design, make and evaluate a fruit salad |
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Year 2 |
Food |
Design, make and evaluate a bag |
Mechanisms, wheels and axles |
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Year 3 |
Make a monster |
Design, make and evaluate a pencil case |
Make a healthy sandwich |
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Year 4 |
Understand and use electrical systems in their products |
Photo frames |
Make a savoury dish |
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Year 5 |
Roman soup surprise! |
Textiles |
Chain reaction |
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Year 6 |
CAMs |
Food |
Technic Lego and KNEX |
Autumn term:
Year 4 Understand and use electrical systems in their products
Spring term:
Year 3 Design, make and evaluate a pencil case
Summer term:
Year 1 Design, make and evaluate a fruit salad
Year 2 Mechanisms, wheels and axles
Please find these really useful knowledge organisers that contain a summary of the facts and key knowledge for each year groups Design and Technology learning.
Autumn:
Year 4 Understand and use electrical systems in their products
Spring:
Year 2 Design, make and evaluate a bag
Year 3 Design, make and evaluate a pencil case
Summer:
Year 1 Design, make and evaluate a fruit salad
Year 2 Mechanisms, wheels and axles
