Design Technology

At St Philip’s Catholic Primary School we recognise the importance of Design and Technology in everyday life and the importance it will have in our children’s future. Design and Technology is about practical problem solving and using materials available to us to solve problems in a real life environment. The process of identifying a need, designing a solution, building an artefact and testing and evaluating it can be satisfying to the child, particularly if it has some relevant function or application.  We have designed a DT curriculum with the outdoor environment in mind and some of what the children do in DT will take place as part of their Forest Schools lessons.

Our curriculum intent for Design and Technology

Our intent for the Design and Technology curriculum is:

  • To develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world.
  • To 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.
  • To critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others.
  • To understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.

We will implement these intentions by:

At St Philip’s Catholic Primary School, teachers provide a range of design tasks and challenges that develop children’s creativity and encourage them to think about important issues. Our medium term plans develop designing and making skills, technical knowledge, cooking and nutrition with purposeful projects relating to a termly theme or topic. The skills learned through each Design and Technology project are often closely linked to other subject areas; knowledge about the properties of materials supports children’s work in science and measuring accurately supports their learning in maths. We have planned for a steady progression in skills throughout the academy and children are continuously building on and developing skills and knowledge acquired in previous years.

Design and Technology is promoted through our school with a range of visits and exciting themed days. The Year 5 Viking topic gives children opportunities to use their knowledge of materials to create a ship. Year 4 inspire their children to create stable, structures with a ‘treasure box’ construction linked to their ‘Quests’ topic.

Children throughout the school are introduced to a range of significant individuals in the world of Design and Technology. Our new Role Model week provides a fantastic opportunity for children to understand the world of Design and Technology as they meet chefs, engineers, architects and construction workers.

The impact of this learning will be:

By the end of KS1 children will be able to:  By the end of KS2 children will be able to:
  • Design functional and appealing products.
  • Evaluate a range of products including their own products.
  • Build structures, exploring how they can be made stronger, stiffer and more stable.
  • Explore and use mechanisms in their products (levers, sliders, pulleys, wheels and axles).
  • Understand where food comes from and the basic principles of a healthy and varied diet.
  • Communicate their design ideas through sketches and cross-sectional and exploded diagrams.
  • Evaluate a range of products including their own products.
  • Apply their understanding of how to strengthen, stiffen and reinforce structures.
  • Understand and use mechanical and electrical systems in their products.
  • Understand how individuals working in the fields of Design and Technology have helped shape the world.
  • Apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet and use a range of cooking techniques.
  • Understand seasonality and the origins of a variety of ingredients.

 

Design Technology Progression of Skills