Intent

At Carr Green Primary School, our Design and Technology curriculum is built on our 3 school values of respect, responsibility and resilience and designed to prepare children for the developing world and inspire their future aspirations. We encourage our children to be creative, problem-solvers who are able to reflect and evaluate decisions openly.

Projects are constructed to inspire children to think innovatively and inquisitively about Design Technology as they design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art, and use cross-curricular knowledge to ensure learning is entwined throughout different areas of learning.

Knowing the needs of our children, at Carr Green we feel that the teaching of food and nutrition is of great importance and holds great relevance in current times. For this reason, children will study a food and nutrition unit every year.  By instilling a love of cooking and learning how to cook is a crucial life skill that enables pupils to feed themselves and others affordably now and in later life.

It is our intent that Carr Green’s Design and Technology curriculum develops pupils who succeed in being resilient, be aware of, and learn from, wider influences on design and technology, including historical, social/cultural, environmental and economic factors of the nation and the global community. Resulting in pupils who will be the next generation of creative practitioners of their chosen field.

Implementation

Knowledge and know-how in Design and Technology is built on the foundations of expressing Arts and Design in Early Years. Through the study of Design and Technology children combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues, in order to design and make a product.  Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product, this is a key skill which they need throughout their life.

Key skills and key knowledge for DT have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between the mixed year groups over a 2-year-cycle. The context for the children’s work in Design and Technology is well considered and children learn about real life structures and the purpose of specific examples, as well as developing their skills throughout the programme of study. To help enhance children’s learning of Design and Technology, lessons are taught as a block enabling children to focus throughout the unit of work and combining new and previously learned knowledge within the unit.

Through a variety of creative and practical activities, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative 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
• generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches, cross-sectional diagrams, prototypes and pattern pieces

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 work
• 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

Skills and knowledge develop throughout each phase of learning via projects and ensure progression. These skills can then be transferred across the curriculum and thus ensure pupils:

1.       design and make products that solve real and relevant problems confidently within a variety of contexts to enable                  them to participate successfully in an increasingly technical world

2.       Learn to take risks, be reflective, innovative, enterprising and resilient

3.       Understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook

4.       Know how to keep themselves and others safe.