DT at Dussindale

Intent

At Cavell, we recognise that the Design and Technology curriculum prepares children to take part in the development of tomorrow’s rapidly changing world. It also has a valuable role to play in supporting children to solve problems and develop their resilience- either collaboratively or independently. We aim for our children to question and think innovatively about the world around them. By evaluating past and present design technology, and the way this has influenced society, children are able to design and develop their own products with a purpose in mind.

We have built our curriculum around 6 key strands that we call our ‘Big Ideas’. These ‘Big Ideas’ -detailed below-provide the structure of our DT curriculum. Knowledge is sequenced and mapped in a coherent format so that pupils make meaningful connections as they progress through the curriculum. The disciplinary knowledge that children acquire to ‘work as a designer’ is revisited and developed as children move through school to ensure the knowledge and skills are firmly embedded within the long-term memory.

Children will build and apply the knowledge and skills needed to design high quality products, which they will test and refine. Our Design and Technology curriculum requires children to draw on skills across the curriculum and children will deepen their understanding and independence within all of these subject areas during their DT lessons.

The expectation is that, by the end of primary school, children will know and understand these key elements of ‘Working as a Design Technologist’ to give them a solid foundation to enter the Design and Technology curriculum at KS3.

Implementation

Through a variety of creative and practical activities, over a rolling two year cycle, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in the process of designing and making. Whilst planning is guided by the DT Association ‘Projects on a Page’ schemes of work, this is adapted to the particular needs and requirements of our children ensuring the National Curriculum is followed. Key skills and knowledge for DT have been mapped across the school to ensure clear progression through the year groups. Big Ideas and technical vocabulary are also included in planning which follows an overall design, make, evaluate structure.

Encouraging the use of technical vocabulary during discussion opportunities links directly into our whole school focus on improving oracy skills.

Design and technology lessons can also be taught as a block so that children’s learning is better focused throughout each unit of work.

Units on nutrition are taught ensuring that children have a growing understanding of where food comes from, its seasonality and the need for a healthy and varied diet. As a school, we promote Design and Technology in the wider school through our Life Learning Curriculum, which was co-constructed with families to include cooking skills. We offer an after school cooking club and children have opportunities to join in gardening at the allotment (shown below), where the children learn about where our food comes from by growing their own, and the importance of a balanced, healthy and varied diet and how to prepare this.

Impact

The impact of the Design and Technology curriculum is assessed in a number of ways. Formal assessment by book trawls and marking of children’s work is used alongside more informal child interviews and photographic and video evidence. Careful questioning and planning for child led discussions are some of the other methods of measuring impact.

At the end of the two year cycle, the children will have experience of:

How to follow the design, make, evaluate process to meet a goal;
Solving real life practical problems using innovation and creativity, both as an individual and as part of a group;
Choosing from and using a growing range of tools and materials;
Using and understanding richer technical vocabulary associated with DT;
Preparing a range of healthy, varied and nutritious dishes

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