Design Technology
To get better at Design and Technology means that children follow the cycle of evaluating and researching products, designing a product, and making and evaluating the product made. Children follow these processes throughout each aspect of Design Technology to make a product that has a purpose. Our units follow the process of: evaluation of existing products gaining children’s likes, dislikes and opinions of products; gather inspiration for the product in a moodboard; design their own product including annotated diagrams; develop the individual skills necessary to support them in the task; adapt the designs in light of the skills; make the product; evaluate the product that they have made. Sometimes, our DT curriculum is blocked to ensure that the children can be fully immersed in the subject and fully develop their understanding and skills embedding it in their long term memory.
Intent:
At St. Luke's Catholic Primary School, Design and Technology is a practical subject; using creativity and imagination, pupils are inspired to be innovative and creative thinkers who have an appreciation for the product design cycle through ideation, creation and evaluation. 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 an understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world.
Our aims and objectives are drawn from the National Curriculum for Design and Technology to ensure that all pupils:
- develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world
- 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
- critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others
- encourage children to select appropriate tools and investigate different techniques for making a product, whilst following safe procedures
- begin to understand about the characteristics of different materials and the use of simple mechanisms
- understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook
- acquire and develop designing and making skills; working with confidence in a stimulating, educational environment
- use their Design and technology skills to support our Artsmark Journey, inspiring children to create, experience and participate in great arts and culture.
Implementation:
At St. Luke’s Catholic Primary School, we follow a broad and balanced Design and Technology curriculum that builds on previous learning and provides both support and challenge for learners. We have created a bespoke curriculum that ensures progression of skills and covers all aspects of the Design and Technology curriculum through progressive end points.
Design and Technology is taught discretely, whilst employing meaningful links to other subject areas. It is taught termly with all classes having discrete Design and Technology lessons across a term or blocked lessons within one half-term. Children’s planning and photographs of work is kept in a class floor book.
We want to ensure that Design and Technology is embedded in our whole school curriculum and that opportunities for enhancing learning, by using design and technology, are always taken. Through a variety of creative and practical activities, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in a process of designing and making. When designing and making, the children are taught to:
Design
- Use research and develop design criteria to inform the design of innovative, functional, appealing products that are fit for purpose, aimed at particular individuals or groups
- Generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches, diagrams, prototypes, pattern pieces and computer-aided design
Make
- Select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks (for example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing) accurately
- 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
Evaluate
- Investigate and analyse a range of existing products
- Evaluate their ideas and products against their own design criteria and consider the views of others to improve their world
- Understand how key events and individuals in design and technology have helped shape the world
Technical knowledge
- Apply their understanding of how to strengthen, stiffen and reinforce more complex structures
- Understand and use mechanical systems in their products
- Understand and use electrical systems in their products
- Apply their understanding of computing to program, monitor and control their products
Key skills and key knowledge for Design and Technology have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups, using our end point document. This also ensures that there is a context for the children’s work in Design and Technology; that they learn about real life structures and the purpose of specific examples, as well as developing their skills throughout the programme of study.
Impact:
Children will meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for Design and Technology; they will have clear enjoyment and confidence in design and technology that they will then apply to other areas of the curriculum. Children will ultimately know more, remember more and understand more about Design Technology, demonstrating this knowledge when using tools or skills in other areas of the curriculum and in opportunities out of school.
The large majority of children will achieve age related expectations in Design Technology. As designers, children will develop skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood.