Our Design and Technology Lead is Nic Truman

Intent:

At Firfield Primary School, children receive a design and technology curriculum which is rich in knowledge and allows them to develop their creative and curious minds.  We want to grow creativity and imagination through a range of activities in order to improve children’s ability to control materials, tools and techniques and to foster an enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts, and a knowledge of artists, craftspeople and designers.  We also aim to inspire children to think about the important role which design and the creation of designed products play in our society.  We want to instil a love of cooking in children that gives them opportunities to express themselves and also help them to become healthy advocates.  Children are taught to develop these skills through acquiring the knowledge, skills and vocabulary in order to know more, remember more and understand more.

Teachers deliver design and technology through a progressive scheme that is accessible to all and is structured and sequenced in a way that enables children to make progress through changes to their long term memory.  On entry, children develop fine and gross motor movements through the use of construction and a carefully planned provision within EYFS.  Within KS1 and KS2, children are taught what makes a good designer and look at the design process.  Children constantly look for ways to seek solutions, improve their products and refine them which helps them become more confident resilient learners.  Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product, this is a key skill which they need throughout their life.  Design and technology allows children to apply the knowledge and skills learned in other subjects, particularly maths, science, art and history.  Links are made in a cross curricular way, giving children motivation and meaning for their learning.  Our curriculum intends to develop children’s cultural capital to ensure that they have a breadth of knowledge and leave Firfield as more informed world citizens.

 

Implementation:

At Firfield Primary School we achieve our curriculum through our school vision which aims for children to flourish through learning, growing and achieving together.  Our design and technology curriculum is based on the 2014 National Curriculum and the Primary Knowledge Curriculum (PKC).  Design and technology is studied in every year group during every other half term and is alternated with our art curriculum.  The curriculum is split into three different areas, ‘cook’, ‘sew’ and ‘build’ and each year group will complete a unit of work in each of these areas once a year.  Each unit specifies the concepts and skills which the children are expected to learn over the course of the unit and these gradually progress and build year on year.  The lessons are taught in a block which enables children to learn more deeply and get really enthusiastic about each unit of work.  Teachers will focus on the retrieval of previously taught knowledge and skills so that children can develop a rich schema of knowledge which they can apply to future learning.

The sequence of lessons in the ‘sew’ and ‘build’ units follow a structure to enable children to become familiar with, understand and practise the process of design; research and investigate, design, make, use and evaluate.  In the ‘cook’ units children are taught skills for how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating.  Children will learn about where our food comes from, the importance of a balanced, healthy and varied diet and how to prepare this.

Children will record their work in an exercise book and this will show evidence of the sequence of work they have completed in the unit  and the design process.  This may include, research, planning, drawings, diagrams, photographs of prototypes and finished work, photographs of children making or cooking and evaluations of finished products.  This will ensure that teachers and children can easily identify progression in knowledge, process and application of skills.

 

Impact:

Children will foster a love and passion for design and technology and be excited about designing and making.  They will have gained confidence within design and technology and be able to articulate the processes they have followed to complete each unit.  Children will have developed the skills and knowledge they need to perform everyday tasks and show that they have retained the knowledge and skills they have learnt in previous years.  They will also be able to apply these skills and knowledge into other areas of the curriculum.  Children will have become more resourceful and learnt some crucial life skills, for example cooking, that will enable them to feed themselves and others.  Through the development of the children’s creative and curious minds, our design and technology curriculum will help them grow a deep love for learning.  This will empower them to become more ambitious thinkers, resilient learners and help them to take risks with their work.