Design Technology
"Design is intelligence made visible."
Alina Wheeler
Intent
Buckingham Primary School offers an inspiring progression of carefully planned Design Technology lessons to ensure that our pupils cover the objectives and concepts required in the National Curriculum and build on skills, year on year. Our aim is to ensure that children leave our school with a range of practical life skills; learn how to solve real problems; understand the effect of products on people and the environment and recognise and develop their own creativity.
We believe there are two main elements of Design Technology – learning about the world we live in and the way things work, and learning to design, make and evaluate functional products for a particular person or user. At Buckingham Primary School each year group covers at least three DT units per year.
We strive to prepare children for their future in an ever-evolving technological world. We want them to learn about designing solutions to improve people’s lives, make better decisions and understand more about the impact of products on the world.
Implementation
We have adopted Kapow’s spiral scheme of work, where pupils will work towards the national expectations at the end of each key stage (EYFS, KS1, Lower KS2 and Upper KS2). The curriculum covers six key areas of learning over a 2 year period, which are then revisited, following our progression documents. These are revisited on a two year rolling program, through the use of high quality resources. All teachers are given the opportunity to research and develop topics within their own planning and can request additional training if, and when needed.
Key skills and techniques are explained to the pupils during high quality lesson inputs and are reinforced through a combination of revisiting through teaching and exploring and demonstrating in independent work or paired work.
During DT lessons teachers use questioning to assess children’s understanding of what has been taught throughout the lesson and any misconceptions are acknowledged, addressed and explained. In DT lessons, many cross-curricular links are observed. For example: Maths links, during cooking topics, where children are measuring out ingredients, as well as calculating the quantities of different recipes. Instructions are often created as part of the ‘design’ phase, which has a direct link to English. Science knowledge is practiced when children are creating products that contain electrical components.
Impact
Assessment of children's learning in Design Technology is an ongoing monitoring of children's understanding, knowledge and skills by the class teacher throughout lessons. This assessment is then used to make adjustments to support and challenge children.
We ensure that children develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world. Pupils build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high- quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users and critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others.
They understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook. Children design and make a range of products. A good quality finish is expected in all design and activities made, appropriate to the age and ability of the child.
