Design and Technology
Intent
At Our Lady and St Joseph’s, our approach to Design and Technology is grounded in an absolute belief for every child to enjoy and succeed in Design and Technology, regardless of background. By providing inspiring, pioneering and practical opportunities we encourage children to learn to think creatively and innovatively to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team. Ultimately, here are Our Lady and St. Joseph’s, through our Design and Technology curriculum, we hope to ignite a passion for future designers, engineers, enterprisers and entrepreneurs.
Click here to see the curriculum rationale for Design and Technology Curriculum rationale document Design and Technology.pdf
Implementation
Our design and technology curriculum is a spiral curriculum carefully planned to build on previous components of learning, revisiting substantive and disciplinary knowledge and fully aligned with the National Curriculum 2014.
Design and Technology is taught by the class teacher and guided by the curriculum lead.
We want children to understand that all products are the end result of a process. Children work on projects that include each component of the design and technology process. Each project includes product specification detailing who the intended user is. They are given opportunities to explore, dismantle, taste and test existing products so that they are able to develop their own ideas.
Each project includes a design element and children are encouraged to share ideas with their peers on how to improve their designs further by considering purpose and usefulness of their products.
Children check the effectiveness of their ideas through mock products, again allowing them to develop their critical thinking skills and allowing them to evaluate their successes and development areas before making their final products.
Each project has planned opportunities to evaluate the effectiveness of the end product. There are planned opportunities to peer assess thinking about each competent of the process and considering what they would do different next time and what worked really well.
The Curriculum
In KS1 children will learn about making products for the user, how to draft and make improvement draft designs, how to make products stiffer and more stable, how to make mock products and how to make the end product successful by making improvements.
Towards the end of Year 1 and into Year 2, children will begin to evaluate their end product. Children will be given opportunities to design and make their own kites, a toy car, their own product from recycled materials and a picnic blanket for a Teddy Bear. They will also be given opportunities to prepare and taste a rage of foods by making a cold meal that includes all key food groups.
In KS2 children will build on their substantive knowledge and disciplinary skills of making products for the end user and developing their designing skills by using more advanced designs such as CAD and developing their evaluation skills including peer evaluation.
By the end of KS2, children will have been given opportunities to develop their own meal and recipe, make and taste various types of bread from around the world, create a ski lift using a pulley system, learn to sew by making a blanket and develop weaving techniques, and make a small raft.
The curriculum at Our Lady and St. Joseph’s aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Have access to a design and technology curriculum that is inspiring, rigorous and practical.
- Are given opportunities to work with creativity and imagination, designing and making products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values.
- Have access to a curriculum which enables them to acquire a broad range of substantive knowledge and draw on disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art.
- Are taught how to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens.
- Are given opportunity to evaluate past and present design and technology developing a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world.
At Our Lady and St. Joseph’s we believe that providing a high-quality design and technology education will make an essential contribution to the creativity, culture, wealth and well-being of the nation.
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 and 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 a design criteria including self-developed 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 (e.g. baking and grilling).
- Understand that processes result in an end product, such as how food gets from farm to fork, grain to bread.
Cross curricular links are also planned for with Design and technology being a sub focus for some topics. These are specifically planned for and are indicated on the school’s curriculum map.
Click here to see the whole school curriculum map for Design and Technology DT Curriculum Map 2022 - 2023.docx
KS1 Knowledge Organisers
Design and Technology KO Y2 - Kites.docx
Design and Technology KO Y1 - Kites.docx
Design and Technology KO - Y1 - Teddy Bears Picnic.docx
Design and Technology KO - Y2 - Teddy Bears Picnic.docx
Design and Technology KO - KS1 - Recycle and reuse.docx
Design and Technology KO - KS1 - Food Glorious Food.docx
Design and Technology KO - KS1 - Inventors and inventions.docx
Design and Technology KO - KS1 - What sounds nice to you.docx
KS2 Knowledge Organisers
Design and Technology KO - LKS2 - Railways.docx
Farm to Fork - Food and Nutrition KO - LKS2.docx
Winter Olympics - Year 5 and 6 DT KO - Mechanisms - Pulleys.docx
UKS2 DT KO - Making Bread.docx
Design and Technology KO - LKS2 - Railways.docx
KS1 making their mock Teddy Bear's picnic blanket
KS1 Making their mock kites and testing their final kites
Team work in UKS2 using pulleys to create a Ski Lift
KS1 Making toys cars
Watch Year 1 testing their cars in the Wacky Races
KS2 Working with CAD to design their bridges
KS2 using linkages and testing stability in their bridges
KS2 With their parents sampling the meals they had planned and made
KS1 making their Welsh Rarebits
Foundation stage learning about food and hygiene
Assessment
Children are assessed at the end of project. The Design and technology lead guides teachers in their assessment and pulls together a rubric to assess against. The includes the key substantive knowledge and disciplinary skills that demonstrates if children have successfully met all the key elements required.
Progress through the Design and Technology Curriculum
Click here to see the Design and Technology Assessment Grid Design and Technology Assessment Grid V2.pdf
KS1 Assessment Rubrics
Assessment rubric - DT - Recycle and reuse.pdf
Assessment rubric - DT - Teddy Bears Picnic.pdf
KS2 Assessment Rubrics