Button Lane Primary School

Design & Technology

D.T. Lead - Miss Campbell

Intent

Our Design and Technology curriculum is driven by high expectations and aims to inspire our children to be innovative and creative thinkers who have an appreciation for the product design cycle through ideation, creation, and evaluation using subject specific language. We want our children to develop the confidence to take risks, through drafting design concepts, modelling, and testing and to be reflective learners who evaluate their work and the work of others. We aim to equip children with the necessary technical skills to produce products so that they can become active problem solvers and free thinkers, making links across the curriculum. We recognise the importance of a language rich curriculum to ensure our children are equipped with the necessary knowledge and practical skills to use throughout their lives.

Through our curriculum, we aim to build awareness of the impact of design and technology on our lives and encourage our children to become resourceful, enterprising citizens who will have the skills to contribute to future design advancements. We want our children to recognise how important designers are in the world of design technology and how their skills help bring ideas to life and are used in society today.

We believe in supporting our children to meet the National curriculum end of year stage attainment targets and ensure there is clear progression throughout each year group.

Implementation

We provide a high quality Design and Technology curriculum which meets the aims of the National Curriculum. We use the ‘Kapow' published scheme of work as a starting point for the planning of our DT lessons, which are often richly linked to engaging contexts in other subjects and topics. Knowledge and skills are mapped across each topic and year group to ensure systematic progression.

The Design and Technology National Curriculum outlines the three main stages of the design process: design, make and evaluate. Each stage of the design process is underpinned by technical knowledge which encompasses the contextual, historical, and technical understanding required for each strand. Cooking and nutrition has a separate section, with a focus on specific principles, skills and techniques in food, including where food comes from, diet and seasonality.

The National curriculum organises the Design and technology attainment targets under five strands:

Design
Make
Evaluate
Technical knowledge
Cooking and nutrition

Knowledge and skills are mapped across each topic and year group to ensure systematic progression (see below) and develop their skills in six key area: Mechanisms, Structures, Textiles, Cooking and Nutrition, Electrical Systems and the Digital World. Key skills are revisited with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model, allowing our children to build on their previous learning.

Our curriculum plans build upon the foundations developed in the Early Years Foundation Stage. In Reception, the curriculum focuses on providing children with a range of materials for children to construct with. Encouraging them to think about and discuss what they want to make. Create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills. Discussing problems and how they might be solved as they arise. Reflecting with children on how they have achieved their aims.

Each of our key areas follows the design process (design, make and evaluate) and has a particular theme and focus from the technical knowledge or cooking and nutrition section of the curriculum. Our lessons are engaging and aim to inspire all children. They incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including practical hands-on, computer-based and inventive tasks.

Impact

Assessment is used as a tool to inform our teaching and learning and to measure the impact of the curriculum we have created. We vary our approach to assessment to ensure it is tailored towards each subject. It takes place purposefully and meaningfully at key points across the year.

Assessment for Design and Technology takes place before, during and at the end of each unit. We assess each Design Technology unit in the following ways:

A knowledge catcher at the beginning of each unit to assess prior knowledge and at the end of the project to review progress
Daily reviews to assess prior knowledge and starting points at the beginning of each lesson
Low stakes end of unit quiz to assess the key knowledge and end points
Moderation within school using the pupils books, observations and end of unit projects/outcomes using clear descriptors
Pupil Voice

Conversations between subject leaders and class teachers take place to ensure that standards across the curriculum are monitored and reported annually to staff, parent’s and governors