Design and Technology Subject Leader: Mrs T Avent
For any more information on Stone St. Mary’s Design and Technology Curriculum, please contact the office.
Design and Technology prepares children to deal with the evolving world. We aim to combine practical skills with knowledge and understanding and provide opportunities for children to develop their abilities through a variety of life skills including cooking, nutrition, design and making.
Intent
Design and Technology (DT) is an inspiring and practical subject. It encourages children to learn to think creatively to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team. Here at Stone St Mary’s C of E Primary School, we have a child-centred DT curriculum, where children are encouraged to use their creativity and imagination to explore, innovate, design, and build products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts.
Implementation
Starting from the Foundation Stage, we teach the knowledge, understanding, and skills needed to engage in a process of designing and making through a variety of creative and practical activities. Children are taught to design, plan, and evaluate, as well as use a range of technical knowledge and vocabulary. The children are given opportunities to reflect upon and evaluate past and present design technology, its uses and its effectiveness and are encouraged to become innovators and risk-takers.
Key skills and knowledge for DT have been carefully planned to ensure there is context, progression and opportunities to learn about/from real-life examples. Our lessons are taught with a focus on one or more of our connecting stones: engineers, design, tools, materials and mechanisms and we aim to, wherever possible, link learning to other disciplines such as mathematics, science, the humanities, computing and art.
Impact
Our DT curriculum ensure the children develop creative, technical, and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world. Children will build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills 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 will understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook. Children will design and make a range of products. A good quality finish will be expected in all designs and activities made appropriate to the age and ability of the child. Children, using our curriculum drivers, learn how to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens.
Engineers
Design
Tools
Materials
Mechanisms
Design and Technology in Each Stage
Children learn DT in EYFS under the umbrella of ‘Understanding the World’. They learn to understand what an engineer does. They investigate a range of materials for purpose, select resources and equipment to make a product and learn to use a range of tools safely. Children learn to draw and explain their designs, selecting the materials they would use to make a product and look at different ways that technology is applied to the world around us, discussing how things work and how things are made.
In Key Stage 1, children will start to learn in greater depth how to be safe using tools. The children will start to explore joining different materials and using tools to cut and join using tape, glue, staples, tape and sew. The children will model and communicate their ideas through talking, drawing, and drafts. They will continue to use wheels, axles, levers, and sliders and will evaluate their ideas and products against design criteria. They will explore how to make structures they build stronger, stiffer, and more stable. The children will plan what to do next, based on their experiences of working with materials and components and will describe the similarities and differences between their own and others’ work. In Food Technology, learn about a healthy and balanced diet and explore where different foods come from and recognise the importance of a variety of food in our diet and will have the opportunity to prepare, chop and peel a range of ingredients.
Children will plan tools and materials for a task and start to explain why they are best. They will use a range of methods to find solutions to design problems and use a range of tools for accuracy. The children will start to explore gears, pulleys, cams, and linkages as well as continue to look at wheels, axles, and sliders. The children will make detailed and realistic plans that are labelled and meet a range of needs to fit a selected purpose. The plans will also include the different processes required and the equipment and materials needed. The children will evaluate existing products and explore their purpose. The children will look at different engineers and investigate existing products. The children will continue to use ICT into their planning. The children will research different techniques to help support their product designs. Children will investigate engineers and utilise their ideas in their plans. They will explore how advancement in technology, robotics and the development of artificial intelligence is impacting on humanity. In Food Technology, children will continue to explore a balanced diet and will closely follow health and safety rules when cooking. The children will learn how different ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed. Children will measure and weigh ingredients to prepare and cook dishes.
Design and Technology Progression
SEND Information
Our SEND children are given the necessary support in class to fully access the DT curriculum. Learning is adapted where necessary to support SEND children to give equal opportunities for all to be confident in approaching any problems faced. Teachers and support staff use adaptive teaching to enable access for all and may provide scaffolds, pre-teaching, and other support and intervention, as outlined in the Kent Mainstream Core Standards.