Intent

At St Joseph’s school children receive a design and technology curriculum which allows them to exercise their creativity through designing and making. The children are taught to combine their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding in order to design and make a product. Skills are taught progressively to ensure that all children are able to learn and practice in order to develop as they move through the school. Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product, this is a key skill which they need throughout their life. D&T ensures the children’s interests are captured through theme learning, ensuring that many (not all) links are made in a cross curricular way across the key areas of mechanisms, structures, cooking and nutrition, textiles and sewing and electrical systems in upper KS2.

Implementation

Our whole curriculum is shaped by our school vision which aims to enable all children, regardless of background, ability, additional needs, and to flourish to become the very best version of themselves they can possibly be. We teach the National Curriculum, supported by a clear skills and knowledge progression. This ensures that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children. All teaching of DT should follow the design, make and evaluate cycle. Each stage should be rooted in technical knowledge. The design process should be rooted in real life, relevant contexts to give meaning to learning. While making, children should be given choice but guided to provide individualised challenge. To evaluate, children should be able to evaluate their own products against a design criteria. Each of these steps should be rooted in technical knowledge and vocabulary. DT should be taught to a high standard, where each of the stages should be given equal weight. The key skills we teach the children are mechanisms, structures, textiles and sewing, cooking and nutrition and electrical systems in upper KS2. 

Impact

By the time children leave our school they will demonstrate an excellent attitude to learning and independent working with the ability to carry out research, show initiative and ask questions to develop a clear understanding of users’ needs. They will be able to act as responsible designers, makers and evaluators who choose their materials carefully and work safely with a wide range of tools. They will have a good knowledge of the tools, equipment and materials needed to make their products and key understanding of the importance of evaluating a product.