Design & Technology

Design and Technology Intent

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." -- Maya Angelou, author, poet, civil rights activist

Our Intent

At SS Peter and Paul Catholic Primary School, we aim to provide children with a Design and Technology education that encourages our children to become problem solvers, who can work creatively through designing and making. We believe that design and technology should inspire children to think independently, innovatively and develop a creative and technical understanding where they can develop their skills, vocabulary and resilience. Children are provided with opportunities to evaluate past and present design technology, develop skills through focussed tasks and then evaluate their own mistakes and successes in their design work.

Design and Technology allows children to apply the knowledge and skills learnt in other subjects particularly mathematics, science and art.

Our Implementation

Design Technology is a valued and celebrated subject in our school which is taught discretely but with a cross curricular thematic approach. We teach Design Technology in units often with cross curricular links eg. In Year 4 children study the Vikings through the rich text, Odd and the Frost Giants and Viking History , this links to the DT project of Textiles , designing a viking purse for Odd to use. In Year 2 Children study the Great fire of London In Literacy and History and this links to the DT project Food and Nutrition Bread making . DT is taught termly on a 2 year cycle, skills are developed and extended through the curriculum . We use Projects on the Page and Kapow to support teachers CPD. We actively reuse, reduce and recycle throughout the design process and children are aware of the impact design has on making our world a cleaner and greener world.

Design Technology at our school allows our pupils to see that they can have an impact on the world themselves: they can create something where before there was nothing. Everything pupils design and make will have a purpose. They will be taught to identify the purpose of their outcomes and those that other people have designed and made, experiencing a range of different products in different situations. They will be able to identify where things work well and times when they don’t. Pupils should be able to understand that often products need to have many different purposes and functions to make them work effectively. Pupils should experience a range of products in a range of different situations. Children record their design journey in their DT journals , amalgamating and displaying how their skills have developed.

As a school, we aim to draw myriad skills and experiences from our community related to the field of Design and Technology. This will include inviting in people with relevant practical skills to show our pupils that the learning has real-world applications, as well as trips to local businesses to make links between the design process taught in school and how that same process is applied in business. As a school we aim to take part in London design challenges and further promote the subject of DT within the school community.

At the end of each unit teachers use their assessment judgements to consolidate understanding.

In the Summer term, we celebrate our incredibly popular STEM week and children participate in fantastic learning opportunities such as inspirational talks from people in STEM careers, programming competitions, as well as open ended design challenges that give our pupils the freedom to follow their own process and find their own solutions.

Our Impact

By the time children reach Year 6, they would have experience of food technology, textiles, design and construction. They should be confidently performing everyday tasks and applying their knowledge, understanding and an increased level of skills as they progress through the school. They will be on the way to becoming risk takers and innovators and will have used a range of tools, resources and materials, to create effectively constructed and aesthetically pleasing results. Children will learn to become adaptive as they evaluate their work, providing them with not only a sense of achievement but also the ability to recognise their own areas of improvement. We also aim for children to have a good understanding around sustainability, developing an understanding of what this means when they make choices in selecting materials for their work but also how they can recycle and dispose of materials in a safe and eco-friendly way. In food technology, we aim for children to learn about locally grown and seasonal foods.

Our Approach

Design Our pupils will:	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, cross-sectional and exploded diagrams, prototypes, pattern pieces and computer-aided design.
Make Our pupils will:	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 Our pupils will:	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 Our pupils will	apply their understanding of how to strengthen, stiffen and reinforce more complex structures understand and use mechanical systems in their products [for example, gears, pulleys, cams, levers and linkages] understand and use electrical systems in their products [for example, series circuits incorporating switches, bulbs, buzzers and motors] apply their understanding of computing to program, monitor and control their products.
Cooking and Nutrition Our pupils will	understand and apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet prepare and cook a variety of predominantly savoury dishes using a range of cooking techniques understand seasonality, and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed.

DT Curriculum Map