Design Technology

The 2014 National Curriculum for DT aims to ensure that all children: 

• 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. 

We understand that it is important for lessons to have a skills-based focus, and that the knowledge can be taught through this. 

Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. Design and Technology encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team.

At St George’s, we encourage children to use their creativity and imagination, to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art. The children are also given opportunities to reflect upon and evaluate past and present design technology, its uses and its effectiveness and are encouraged to become innovators and risk-takers. 

Through a variety of creative and practical activities, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an interactive process of designing and making. The children work in a range of relevant contexts (for example home, school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment).

Using the Project on a Page Design Technology scheme of work as a scaffold for teachers to plan and adapt lessons to fit our children’s needs we encourage opportunities for progression of skills in food, mechanisms, structures, textiles and specially in KS2 - electrical systems. They all build on the following four main areas: 

Design 
• use research and develop design criteria to inform the design of innovative, functional, appealing products that are fit for purpose, aimed at particular individuals or groups 
• generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches, cross-sectional diagrams, prototypes, pattern pieces and computer-aided design 
Make 
• select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks (for example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing) accurately 
• select from and use a wider range of materials and components, including construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their functional properties and aesthetic qualities 
Evaluate 
• investigate and analyse a range of existing products 
• evaluate their ideas and products against their own design criteria and consider the views of others to improve their work 
• understand how key events and individuals in design and technology have helped shape the world 
Technical knowledge 
• apply their understanding of how to strengthen, stiffen and reinforce more complex structures 
• understand and use mechanical systems in their products 
• understand and use electrical systems in their products 
• apply their understanding of computing to program, monitor and control their products 

Key skills and key knowledge for Design Technology have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups and a Year A and Year B overview is in place to ensure that children access all curriculum areas before they leave in Year 6.  Design and technology lessons are sometimes taught as a block so that children’s learning is focused throughout each unit of work, and in some cases, this might involve DT days where appropriate and the curriculum is collapsed for the day.  

Children in Foundation and KS1 have access to a junk modelling area and woodwork bench which they access during continuous provision to practise skills learned during DT lessons.