Design Technology

Curriculum Intent

At St Edward’s we want our Design and Technology Curriculum to develop children’s skills and knowledge in design, structures, mechanisms, electrical systems and a range of materials, including food. We want our children to learn how to create products with due consideration of their own and others’ needs, wants and values. Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject that encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively to solve problems, both as individuals and as members of a team. We believe that high-quality DT lessons will inspire children to think independently, innovatively and develop creative and technical understanding. Our DT curriculum provides children with opportunities to research, explore and investigate, develop their ideas, make a product and evaluate their own and other’s products.

Curriculum Implementation

At St. Edward’s we offer the children opportunities to solve real life problems making functional products across a variety of contexts. Children will be able to practise their skills and develop their subject knowledge through a vocabulary rich environment. During each topic, new information is presented in small steps, after which pupils are provided time to practise in order to develop skills. Teachers pose carefully considered questions which elicit information from pupils and allows them to provide in depth responses to deepen their understanding. The children are encouraged to make decisions for themselves and engage with practical work. They will be given plenty of opportunities to create products they can see, touch – and even taste – for themselves. Children will learn how to be critical of their work and that of others and develop their evaluation skills.

Impact

We follow a broad and balanced Design and Technology curriculum that builds on previous learning and provides both support and challenge for learners. We follow a Design and Technology scheme that ensures progression of skills and covers all aspects of the Design and Technology curriculum. Assessment of children's learning in Design and Technology is an ongoing monitoring of children's understanding, knowledge and skills by the class teacher, throughout lessons. This assessment is then used to inform differentiation, support and challenge required by the children. Design and Technology is also monitored by the subject leader throughout the year in the form of book monitoring and lesson observations to establish the impact of the teaching taking place.

Our Design and Technology curriculum helps achieve our vision of Life in all its fullness by…

Mind: through being challenged, children will learn new skills which they may never have come across previously. Through given design briefs and criteria, children will have to think systematically about how they will make and create their products.  They will learn about how every day objects work and function, helping spark curiosity within them.

Heart: allowing children to work together and demonstrate our school values including: friendship, respect and truthfulness  

Body: children will be developing new skills constantly throughout different topics. Each child will also complete a food topic which will coincide with their healthy eating PSHE topic.

Spirit: children will develop a sense of awe and wonder in understanding about how things are made and constructed.

Planning Rationale

Our children enjoy and value Design and Technology and know why they are doing things, not just how. Children will understand and appreciate the value of Design and Technology in the context of their personal wellbeing and the creative and cultural industries and their many career opportunities. Progress in Design and Technology is demonstrated through regularly reviewing children’s work to ensure that progression of skills is taking place.  The Design and Technology curriculum will contribute to children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection. This would be seen in them being challenged through rich topic-based language and being able to talk confidently about their work, and sharing their work with others. 

Our Planning has five content areas which are developed across each year group:

 Within every unit we have four underlying skills which form the base of children’s work, which children build on in each unit:

Our content areas are delivered through different topics, across each academic year. You can click on each topic to see the knowledge organiser for that topic, which shows, in more detail, the content that is covered. 

An overview of how the content areas and underlying skills progress can be seen on our DT Curriculum Map here.