Design and Technology

Whilst I remember some aspects of D&T from primary school, such as building Tudor houses and designing a pair of slippers, my experience with D&T comes mainly from secondary school where the subject was divided clearly into four categories. We studied textiles, food technology, wood technology and product design at a much greater depth than ever covered during primary school. I feel as though this distinction helped my understanding of how D&T differs from the discipline of Art as a subject. Since beginning my degree, I have developed an ever deeper understanding of the stages of D&T. I've come to understand that it is much more than simply 'designing' and 'making' something, as the evaluation aspect is so often overlooked despite its importance. I've also taken away a key point, this being that whatever the children create must serve a purpose. I chose to write about D&T for my PED2016 assignment where we were asked to consider how two of the foundation subjects help form a broad and balanced curriculum that enables both creative and cross-curricular learning experiences to occur. I found writing about D&T particularly easy as the whole premise of the subject is to use your creativity to design, make and evaluate a product that serves a purpose. This can easily be made cross-curricular by tying the product into another subject.