Design Technology

Design Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. Design Technology encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team. We aim to provide them with a curriculum that will support them through their journey at Dean Bank, encouraging children to use their creativity and imagination, to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and opinions. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other areas such as maths, English, science and history. Children are also given opportunities to reflect upon and evaluate their work and ideas, their products uses and effectiveness, encouraging them to be innovative and risk-takers. Each year group will have a long-term plan in place with specific aims from mechanisms, construction, food and nutrition and electrical mechanisms. These specific areas of learning will provide a context for children to develop their knowledge, understanding, and skills using a variety of materials.

Design and Technology planning has been designed to allow children the opportunity to focus on those specific areas of learning relative to their age group. We aim for our children to be able to think about needs and how through developing our own ideas we can plan, produce products and evaluate them for a specific purpose.

Each term, the children will design, safely make and evaluate a product that meets their design criteria. Our D&T lessons are taught as stand-alone sessions, within a weekly block, so that the children are fully aware of the subject that they are engaging with and the skills and processes they will be developing.  There is always a purpose and audience for the product being created. Each year group will complete one cooking and nutrition topic, within the summer term, to promote and encourage a healthy and balanced diet, which they will then enjoy at our whole school picnic. We follow The National Curriculum to make sure that all of the objectives and subject content are covered within Key Stage One and Key Stage Two.

Each term, the work our children produce will be highlighted in a variety of context to broaden their experiences.

Autumn term: All children will make a Christmas related product that they can take home and share with their parents/carers.

Spring term: Children’s work will be displayed in a D&T showcase in the hall, inviting in parents/carers and governors, allowing children to show and explain the projects they have been working on.

Summer Term: Children will attend a whole school picnic as outlined above.

Planning:

Within Design Teachnology, teachers are provided with medium term planning for each term that clearly show the sequence that knowledge and skills should be taught, prior learning to be built upon, key vocabulary, activities to impart knowledge and where what they are learning will lead to in the future. The focus of teachers is on preparation rather than planning so that they focus their attention on providing high-quality teaching and resources.

Design Technology lessons:

Design Technology lessons at Dean Bank should follow a similar pattern in both key stage 1 and 2 – which will be taught within a timetabled week in order to allow for time to focus on the required skills. In order to support children build secure mental schemas, prior learning should be made explicit at the beginning of a lesson to allow children to understand the skills they are building upon. After sharing of the learning objective, the introduction of key vocabulary should also take place to support understanding and manage cognitive overload and aid understanding of the lesson/skills.  

The example below outlines what a Design Technology lesson at Dean Bank should contain:

• Recap and recall of previous skills covered (particularly those linked to current topic)
• Sharing of learning objective
• Vocabulary introduction
• Content teaching/modelling of skills
• Tasks
• Mini plenaries/self evaluations to discuss successes/challenges along the way.

Evaluation:

Each topic/project will be evaluated at the end. Teachers will use the provided evaluation forms which show progression throughout KS1 and KS2. The designed forms allow children to begin their evaluating skills in year 1 and continuously develop them through to year 6. Children will be asked to consider what they like/dislike through to success/challenges and even considering what they may do differently if they were to repeat the task.

Design Technology in EYFS

In our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), the children begin their journey developing their practical skills whilst working with a range of materials within their expressive arts and design provision.  The ‘Development Matters in EYFS’ guidance highlights the importance for the children to have regular opportunities to explore materials to support their creativity and imagination. The children will create simple products linking with the topic they are covering at the time. Children in our EYFS will also start to understand the importance of cookery and nutrition. 

Teachers will be using formative assessment continually within their teaching and using this to support their teaching and support children to develop the knowledge and skills appropriate. They will then use recall and retrieval activities to support students to retain information and support their own ongoing assessment. Staff will record a student’s progress against the relevant knowledge and skills objectives for the unit using the Insight assessment tracking system. Children will be judged as working towards age-related expectations or working at age-related expectations based on the number of objectives achieved at the given assessment point. 

In EYFS, teachers will use the setting’s assessment system to track progress against the prime and specific areas but will also record evidence of children developing key skills and knowledge through the use of seesaw.