Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. It encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively and to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team. At St Helen’s Primary Academy Design and Technology aims to develop this by facilitating children in gaining experience and skills of a wide range of formal elements of design and concepts of technology in a way that will enhance their learning opportunities, enabling them to use Design and Technology across a range of subjects to be creative and solve problems, ensuring they make progress.

At St Helen’s we provide a planned and sequenced Design and Technology curriculum based on the statutory elements of the national curriculum through tailoring Kapow to meet the children’s needs. The curriculum builds on previous learning and supports both challenge and support that enables children to progress within the four elements of Design and Technology. The four elements are design, make, evaluation and technical knowledge. Work is completed in Design and Technology books to show both a progression of skills and a learning journey.

Children will gain the knowledge and skills within the Design and Technology curriculum through projects that are based on a clear design criterion, which gives the children a purpose that underpins their learning. The projects can be adapted by teachers to ensure they meet the curriculum drivers engage, enrich and explore.

Our Design and Technology curriculum has been designed to develop and demonstrate knowledge, understanding and development of skills. Children are clear about what the intended outcomes are and have a means to measure their own work against this. The impact of the Design and Technology curriculum will be monitored by

-Looking at pupils’ work, especially over time as they gain skills and knowledge.

-Observing how children perform in lessons.

-Talking to children about what they know about ‘key knowledge’ and how their previous learning has supported them within their new projects.

Children at St Helen’s Primary Academy enjoy and value Design and Technology and know why they are doing things, not just how. Our children will understand and appreciate the value of Design and Technology in the context of their personal wellbeing and the creative and cultural industries.

Micro level - Formative assessment (Task by task) 

• Ongoing AFL during lessons through: 

• - Eliciting information through questioning and dialogue 

• - Providing feedback with clear direction on how to improve 

• - Helping children to understand how to become successful (criteria) 

Meso level - Lesson by lesson assessment 

• - Knowledge checks at the start of the lesson to ensure children are remembering more content and vocabulary over time

• - ‘Do now’ retrieval quizzes at the start of every lesson to recall key content and vocabulary from previous lesson

Macro level - End of unit

• End of unit assessment based around content and knowledge taught throughout the unit. 

• Data analysis to inform future planning and coverage. 

Mega level - Standardised test 

• No Standardised tests are in place for the Design Technology Curriculum