Design and Technology

Subject Lead - Miss Clarkson

Chapel Allerton Primary School

D&T statement

Intent

At Chapel Allerton Primary we aim to provide all children with a broad and balanced curriculum which prepares them for life beyond primary education. The high-quality teaching of design and technology at CAPs empowers our children to step away from being passive learners and gives them ample opportunity to become active participants and agents of the world as they learn to take risks, become resourceful, champion their creativity and imagination and make essential contributions that could improve the human made world.

At Chapel Allerton Primary the design and technology curriculum combines skills, knowledge, concepts and values to enable children to tackle real problems. It can improve analysis, problem solving, practical capability and evaluation skills. The children are encouraged to become innovators and risk-takers. High-quality design and technology education makes an essential contribution to the creativity, culture, wealth and well-being of the nation.

At CAPs we strive to model, teach, and enable the development of subject specific skills and allow children to speculate and envisage how they can develop, design, and improve the world around them through the medium of design and technology.

Implementation

At CAPS we follow the Project on A Page scheme which embeds the 6 essential DT principles;

User – who are the products for

Purpose – what tasks the products will perform

Functionality – how the products will work

Design Decisions – the opportunities children have to make choices

Innovation – the scope children have to be original with their thinking

Authenticity – how believable / real the products will be to the children.

These principles ensure consistency and a progression of skills throughout school and enables every unit to be worked through the same clear process.

This scheme links directly to the National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage and the programme of study states what should be taught in KS1/KS2 DT lessons.

Furthermore, linking with the EYFS under the strand ‘expressive arts and design’ this programme highlights the importance of high-quality DT experiences and activities for children in our Early Years setting.

At CAPs there are three types of activity that shape our DT lessons;

Investigative and Evaluative Activities (IEAs) where children learn from a range of existing products and find out about D&T in the wider world

Focused Tasks (FTs) where they are taught specific technical knowledge, designing skills and making skills

Design, Make and Evaluate Assignment (DMEA) where children create functional products with users and purposes in mind.

Impact

Children will have clear enjoyment and confidence in design and technology that they will then apply to other areas of the curriculum.

Children will ultimately know more, remember more and understand more about design technology, demonstrating this knowledge when using tools or skills in other areas of the curriculum and in opportunities out of school.

The large majority of children will achieve age related expectations in design technology.

Annual assessment and reporting of standards in D&T

D&T Progression of Skills

DT Progression of Skills 1 PDF.pdf

Design and Technology in EYFS

Design and Technology knowledge, understanding and skill development in EYFS is taught mainly under the ‘Expressive Arts and Design’ and ‘Understanding the World’ sections of Development Matters but it does cross over into many other areas too. Design and Technology is taught by exploring and playing in purposeful well thought out areas of provision, through active learning and through creating and thinking critically.

In EYFS the children:

Explore different materials, using all their senses to investigate them.
Manipulate and play with different materials. Use their imagination as they consider what they can do with different materials.
Make simple models which express their ideas.
Explore different materials freely, to develop their ideas about how to use them and what to make.
Make imaginative and complex ‘small worlds’ with blocks and construction kits, such as a city with different buildings and a park.
Join different materials and explore different textures.
Develop their own ideas and then decide which materials to use to express them.
Return to and build on their previous learning, refining ideas and developing their ability to represent them.
Create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills.

The lessons provide children with a solid base to allow them to access the National Curriculum in Year 1.

The development of Design and Technology proficiency at Chapel Allerton Primary is achieved through opportunities and experiences across the whole curriculum. Our D&T curriculum enables pupils to take part in a broad range of practical activities directly concerned with: identifying needs; generating ideas; planning and designing; making and testing; evaluating embodying the principle of designing something, for somebody for some purpose.

Design and Technology spans and links the whole curriculum together for our pupils. In primary school it has its roots in imaginative play, art, science and computing. We want all children at Chapel Allerton Primary to learn to think innovatively, to question and explore the practical world around them and to develop a positive, Growth Mindset approach to their learning.