Intent

At North Bradley CE Primary School, we encourage all children to use their creativity and imagination to create innovative designs and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. We want children to draw upon knowledge from other curriculum areas such as mathematics, science, computing and art to support their designing and making skills. By the end of Year Six, we want children to have the knowledge, skills and a love of DT, which will enable them to be creative individuals as they grow and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world.

Implementation

Each year, children gather technical knowledge in mechanisms, structures, textiles, and cooking. Children will also experience electrical systems during their time in Key Stage Two. Each unit of learning, regardless of focus, follows the same process of design, make and evaluate. This process is fundamental and runs throughout each unit of learning.

Our approach to teaching DT units of work are:

Step 1—Background research—exploring the context and existing products.

Step 2—Design Criteria—Understand their intended users and their product.

Step 3—Planning—Communicating ideas and creating prototypes for the product.

Step 4—Making—Selecting the tools and applying the practical skills and techniques.

Step 5—Evaluation—Referring to planning and initial ideas in evaluating their product.

Teachers have the flexibility to teach DT over several weeks or block lessons together over a shorter time period. When possible, we link our DT units of work to our wider learning contexts to engage the children. E.g. children will continue to develop their learning about structures in Year 5 and apply this new knowledge to design a Viking longship to link with their learning context based on the Vikings.   

Impact

By following our DT Programme of Study, our children, by the end of KS2, will have gained a range of skills and knowledge to design and make high-quality products for a wide range of users. They will be able to evaluate and test their ideas and products critically. Children will be able to safely prepare and cook a simple meal understanding the principles of nutrition.