Design Technology

Intent

• To ensure all pupils achieve their full potential in Design and Technology
• To build a solid foundation of Design and Technology knowledge and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users
• To enable all pupils to develop the creative, technical and practice skills needed to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world
• To ensure all pupils build a solid foundation of cooking and nutrition knowledge and skills and learn how to cook

Implementation

At East Bergholt, Design Technology is an important subject where pupils use innovative ways to solve problems. In EYFS, children learn important skills through appropriate contexts such constructing structures, describing materials and cutting accurately with scissors.

Starting in Year 1, children have explicit lessons in textiles, food and nutrition, mechanics, understanding materials, structures, systems and electric systems. Vertical progression is woven into our curriculum, where children deliberately revisit their prior learning from previous years to ensure progression. As designers, children have frequent opportunities to design, make, evaluate and apply. This approach is used throughout the school and is applied to real-life problems and contexts, with a key question at the heart of each unit, e.g. ‘How can you repurpose an item of clothing?’

Using creativity and imagination, in lessons children secure a variety of skills carefully modelled by the teacher, such as chopping vegetables and using a needle and thread. Children use these skills in their role as designers – applying what they have learned to make conscious decisions in their own products. They create and test their own designs, evaluating the outcomes carefully and therefore learning through their mistakes and successes. By taking risks, pupils become more resourceful and innovative whilst embedding important life skills.

In our curriculum, we strive to develop the pupils’ oracy and vocabulary skills to enable them to use ambitious language when talking about their learning. Our intention is that using an evidence-based approach alongside exceptional teacher instruction, children at East Bergholt will leave fully equipped with the skills needed to succeed in the outside world.

Impact

Pupils have amassed and embedded a set of DT skills. They can talk about real life designers or designs and the impact they have had on the world. They have developed and become confident in the many characteristics of learning such as: resilience, resourcefulness, creativity and problem solving.