DT Curriculum

Design and Technology at Plymouth Grove Primary School

Our DT Leader is Ms Cooper.

Article 29 of the UNCRC: a child or young person's education should help their mind, body and talents be the best they can

Global Goal 4: Quality Education

Intent

At Plymouth Grove Primary School, we aim to give children a broad experience of design and technology topics, solving real-life design problems in practical, creative and innovative ways. This includes designing products for a variety of purposes, taking into account their own and other people’s needs.

We aim to build high levels of competence in the subject specific skills of:

• Practical making skills (e.g. cutting food safely, using scales or other measuring equipment, using appropriate tools competently and safely)
• Design skills, in particular following an iterative design process.
• Evaluating their own and other people’s designs.

Implementation

Design and Technology is taught through the framework of the 2014 National Curriculum, using a more detailed scheme of work developed by the Design and Technology association.

The topics are taught in a spiral, so each topic is taught once every two years. These are now on a fixed basis, so teachers in each year group teach the same topics each year. This enables teachers to develop their resources and expertise, as well as developing effective curriculum links. For example, the design and technology topic of electrical systems is taught in year 4 alongside the Science topic on electricity. Teachers are encouraged to take a cross-curricular approach to teaching design and technology, and this approach works especially well in key stage 1.  DT is taught by class teachers in KS1, by a specialist teacher in Year 3, 4 and 6, and by the subject lead in year 5.

The topics in key stage 1 and key stage 2 have been developed from a scheme devised by The Design and Technology Association and their “projects on a page” planning sheets are used to help teachers plan and deliver highly effective DT lessons. These topics are closely linked to the Age Related Expectations (AREs) in DT, which allows a consistent application of the curriculum throughout the key stages. Planning is saved on the school’s computer system.

The delivery of food design and technology is assisted by the kitchen staff, who deliver skills-based sessions, and help staff order and prepare their food topics. Food can also then be cooked using the school’s ovens.

Topic work in DT is structured in a similar way throughout the school, as below:

• Exploring existing products
• Focused tasks (skills-based work)
• Designing
• Making
• Evaluating

Resources are allocated to each year group in topic boxes, with additional resources ordered throughout the year.  We have an extensive range of materials to enable children to participate in exciting, iterative-based design and learning.

Assessments are carried out in various forms:

• Final pieces of work can be assessed by class teacher.
• Whole-class assessment based on AREs.
• Assessment for Learning (AfL) is used to evaluate the strength of provision and to improve weaker areas for future projects.

Outcomes of this are used to inform teachers which areas have been covered and to what extent the year-group achieved the AREs. This combined with other forms of monitoring help to inform the subject leader’s position statement and action plan in design and technology for the following school year.

Impact

A high quality of design and technology education feeds into many other areas of the curriculum. Skills and knowledge gained are particular relevant to Science, Maths and Art.

Children will:

• Learn critical thinking skills through evaluation of existing products.
• Develop the creative, practical and technical expertise to participate in an increasingly technological world.
• Design, build and make high-quality products that can be used in the real world.
• Understand, use and apply the principles of nutrition in learning to cook.
• Develop their problem-solving skills through real-world design problems.