Design and Technology
Intent
Through our design and technology curriculum we aim to ensure that all pupils:
- develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world;
- 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;
- critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others;
- understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.
At St Anne’s Fulshaw we aim to inspire children to be innovative and creative thinkers who have an appreciation for the product design cycle through ideation, creation and evaluation.
We want our children to develop the confidence to take risks, through drafting design concepts, modelling, and testing and to be reflective learners who evaluate their work and the work of others.
Our children are taught design and technology in a way that ensures progression of skills and knowledge across the school. Our three-year curriculum plan ensures that all children have covered sufficient units of work to enable them to achieve the end of Key Stage statements by the time they leave the school and to explore all strands of the curriculum.
Implementation
At St. Anne’s Fulshaw, to ensure high standards of teaching and learning in design and technology, we implement a curriculum that provides a progression of knowledge and skills, that covers all aspects of the design and technology national curriculum. We have planned a 3-year rolling programme in Years 1, 2 & 3 and in Years 4, 5 & 6, building on the knowledge and skills that the children develop in the Early Years. At the start of each topic, teachers take time to find out what are children already know so that all teaching is built on prior learning.
Teachers are able to teach weekly discrete design and technology lessons or to block them together; whichever suits their organisation better. Through teacher-modelling children will learn the skills in each area, while the key vocabulary should be explicitly taught throughout the lessons. Children will not cover all of the knowledge and skills planned until the end of the three year cycle.
Impact
Our children enjoy and value design and technology. They achieve well and make good progress in the subject. Design and technology contributes to a child’s personal development in through inspiring creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection.
Pupils can talk confidently about their work, and share their work with others, including regularly in assembly. They understand and appreciate the value of design and technology in the context of their personal well-being and the creative and cultural industries, as well as their many career opportunities stemming from the subject.
