Intent

At Woodcote Primary School we are committed to providing all children with learning opportunities to engage in design and technology. Our planning and practice is based on the 2014 National Curriculum for Design and Technology (D&T).

Woodcote Primary School believe D& T is about designing and making products for a specific user and purpose. It involves children in learning about the world we live in and developing a wide range of knowledge and skills through designing and making. It helps children to think through problems creatively, about how to organise themselves and how to use knowledge and skills to bring about change and to shape the environment. Through design and technology children become discriminating and informed users of products and become innovators.

Woodcote Primary School believe D&T offers opportunities for children to:

• develop their capability to create high quality products through combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding;
• develop a sense of enjoyment and pride in their ability to make;
• nurture creativity and innovation through designing and making;
• Develop an interest and understanding of the ways in which people from the past and present have used design to meet their needs.

Our D&T curriculum provides children with opportunities to research, represent their ideas, explore and investigate, develop their ideas, make a product and evaluate their work. Children will be exposed to a wide range of media including textiles, food and woodwork; through this, children will develop their skills, vocabulary and resilience.

Implementation

Whilst the EYFS and National Curriculum forms the foundation of our curriculum, we make sure that children learn additional skills, knowledge and understanding and enhance our curriculum as and when necessary.

In D&T children are asked to solve problems and develop their learning independently. This allows the children to have more ownership over their curriculum and lead their own learning in Design and Technology.  English, Maths and ICT skills are taught during discrete lessons but are revisited in D&T so children can apply and embed the skills they have learnt in a purposeful context.

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, aimed at particular individuals or groups.
• generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated
• sketches, cross-sectional diagrams, prototypes, pattern pieces and computer-aided design.

Make:

• select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks (for
• example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing, as well as chopping and slicing) accurately.
• select from and use a wider range of materials, ingredients and components, including
• construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their functional properties, aesthetic qualities and, where appropriate, taste.

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.
• apply their understanding of computing to program, monitor and control their products
• understand some of the ways that food can be processed and the effect of different cooking practices (including baking and grilling).

Key skills and key knowledge for D&T have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups. The context for the children’s work in Design and Technology is also 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. Design and technology lessons are also taught as a block so that children’s learning is focused throughout each unit of work.

Impact

• Children will have clear enjoyment and confidence in design and technology that they will then apply to other areas of the curriculum.
• Children will ultimately know more, remember more and understand more about Design and Technology, demonstrating this knowledge when using tools or skills in other areas of the curriculum and in opportunities out of school.
• The large majority of children will achieve age related expectations in Design and  Technology.
• As designers children will develop skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood.

Assessment

• Pupils use review documents to assess the success of products created and skills learnt.  During an annual project staff moderate this skills to ensure progression across the school.