St Paul's Catholic Primary School

Intent

At St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, we aim to provide a high quality Design & Technology curriculum to allow the children to use their creativity and imagination to design and make products in a range of contexts. At St Paul’s we follow Kapow’s Primary Design and Technology scheme of work. Design and technology is taught through defined design and technology projects and the direct teaching of skills. Pupils evaluate designers and existing products to inspire them to create their own ideas and designs. Through our DT curriculum, children should be inspired by engineers, designers, chefs and architects to enable them to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, food products with a real life purpose.

The Design and technology scheme of work aims to inspire pupils to be innovative and creative thinkers who have an appreciation for the product design cycle through ideation, creation, and evaluation. We want pupils to develop the confidence to take risks, through drafting design concepts, modelling, and testing and to be reflective learners who evaluate their work and the work of others. Through our scheme of work, we aim to build an awareness of the impact of design and technology on our lives and encourage pupils to become resourceful, enterprising citizens who will have the skills to contribute to future design advancements.

The Design and technology scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets in the National curriculum and the aims also align with those in the National curriculum.

Implementation

Our Design and technology National curriculum outlines the three main stages of the design process: design, make and evaluate. Each stage of the design process is underpinned by technical knowledge which encompasses the contextual, historical, and technical understanding required for each strand. Cooking and nutrition has a separate section, with a focus on specific principles, skills and techniques in food, including where food comes from, diet and seasonality.

The National curriculum organises the Design and technology attainment targets under five subheadings or strands:

● Design

● Make

● Evaluate

● Technical knowledge

● Cooking and nutrition

The Design and technology scheme has a clear progression of skills and knowledge within these five strands across each year group.

Our Curriculum overview shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the five strands.

Our Progression of skills shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

Through the Design and technology scheme, pupils respond to design briefs and scenarios that require consideration of the needs of others, developing their skills in six key areas:

● Mechanisms

● Structures

● Textiles

● Cooking and nutrition (Food)

● Electrical systems (KS2) and

● Digital world (KS2)

Each of our key areas follows the design process (design, make and evaluate) and has a particular theme and focus from the technical knowledge or cooking and nutrition section of the curriculum. The scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key areas revisited again and again with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revisit and build on their previous learning.

Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including practical hands-on, computer-based and inventive tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective and robust Design and technology curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. This has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full Design and technology curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.

Design & Technology at St Paul’s is taught on a half termly basis. Our lessons build on pupil’s prior knowledge, understanding and skills, therefore making learning memorable and transferable. The evidence of their work is collected in their D&T portfolio, either via sketch or photographic evidence which follows the children through the school, so development can be seen by both the child and teacher.

Impact

Our Design & Technology curriculum is well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression year on year, giving pupils the skills and knowledge and vocabulary that they need to move forward in their learning, alongside opportunities to apply their knowledge to different situations. The pupils will have designed, made and evaluated a range of products.  They will be able to talk confidently about their work. 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.

As designers children will develop skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood.

Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. Furthermore, each unit has a unit quiz and knowledge catcher which can be used at the start and/ or end of the unit.

After the implementation of Design and technology, pupils should leave school equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and be innovative and resourceful members of society.

The expected impact of following the Design and technology scheme of work is that children will:

✔ Understand the functional and aesthetic properties of a range of materials and resources.

✔ Understand how to use and combine tools to carry out different processes for shaping, decorating, and manufacturing products.

✔ Build and apply a repertoire of skills, knowledge and understanding to produce high quality, innovative outcomes, including models, prototypes, CAD, and products to fulfil the needs of users, clients, and scenarios.

✔ Understand and apply the principles of healthy eating, diets, and recipes, including key processes, food groups and cooking equipment.

✔ Have an appreciation for key individuals, inventions, and events in history and of today that impact our world.

✔ Recognise where our decisions can impact the wider world in terms of community, social and environmental issues.

✔ Self-evaluate and reflect on learning at different stages and identify areas to improve.

✔ Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Design and technology.