Design & Technology

Intent

At St Wilfrid’s, our broad and balanced curriculum is ambitious and carefully designed to give all pupils, with a particular emphasis on those who are disadvantaged or with SEND, the knowledge and skills that they need to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and experiences in later life.  It is deliberately planned and sequenced so that the end points that it is building towards are clear and that pupils develop knowledge and skills, directly linking to what has been taught before (through the ‘Power Pyramid’), to be able to reach those end points. The end points are evidenced through carefully tracked outcomes and assessments.  Pupils learn the knowledge that they need to answer subject-specific questions and are able to practically demonstrate and apply the cyclical skills that they acquire, supported by deliberate exposure to cultural capital opportunities and meaningful links between subjects. Pupils make good progress due to the expert knowledge of subject leaders and teachers, ensuring pupils know and remember more.

Our intent at St Wilfrid’s is to encourage all our pupils to develop their creativity and imagination through a varied and stimulating skills and knowledge based Design and Technology Curriculum.

Implementation

This intent is implemented in EYFS children by encouraging children to follow their interests and learn through creative play. They will design and make things which are inspired by their interests. Following on, key stage 1 children will continue to develop their creativity and practical skills by designing, making and evaluating purposeful products. Children will learn about the role of design and technology in their environment and the importance of design skills in a changing world. They begin to understand about how products can be designed and made to solve problems and meet needs. They will evaluate both their own design ideas and that of inventors/designers from the past.

Through our skills and knoledge based curriculum children will be taught the transferrable skills needed to both enjoy this subject and achieve their age group expectations.

In Key stage 2, children will continue to develop their creative and practical skills further through more complex activities. This will build on existing skills and help to improve their control of materials, tools and techniques. Children will increase their awareness of the role and purpose of design and technology in different contexts and time periods. Children will become more confident in using different materials and processes in order meet a design need. Throughout the school, children will follow the same design process of designing, making and evaluation. Children will also be taught the correct technical knowledge for their year group.

Integral to our knowledge and skills based approach to learning in design and technology is the clear sequence of skills taught. The children’s experiences and skills base will build year on year through the explicit teaching of skills in both the design, make and evaluate process, and cooking and nutrition strand.

Year Group Expectations

Every child has their own design & technology log book, which will be a personal record for pieces of design and technology work. This book will have evidence of the skills and processes taught, finished pieces, and photographs of models or displays. When work is taken down from displays, it could (where possible) be stapled into their sketch books. In essence, it is a place where the child’s D&T work can be evidenced and also a place where children can experiment with their design plans, prototypes and try out new ideas and techniques.

The design and technology curriculum is split into 3 areas, which could be taught as 3 blocks over 3 half terms, alternating with art & design. The scheme of work overview for each year group gives more detail about how the skills layer up year on year.

Design and Technology Areas

1. Design, Make and Evaluate – This is about identifying a design need, planning a suitable design, making the design using range of tools and materials and evaluating the design to see if it meets the original need. This is a repeated process which will allow mastery of these skills over time.
2. Technical knowledge – This is about using more complex technical processes to further improve the design.
3. Cooking and Nutrition – This is about looking developing a life skill for children future health and wellbeing.

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