Intent
‘Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep’.
Through our Design and Technology curriculum at St Luke’s, all children will be encouraged to be imaginative, innovative and creative learners when designing and making products. They will become risk-takers, understanding making mistakes is an important part of the process.
During our Design and Technology lessons, children will be inspired by various designers, engineers, chefs and architects. All children at St Luke’s will be provided the opportunity to use their imagination to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems. Throughout the school, they will be taught to select and use a range of age appropriate tools safely and effectively to make a product. We follow a ‘Design, Make, Evaluate’ approach, allowing children to use their creativity and encouraging them to think about important issues in the world. This process should assist children in developing a greater awareness and understanding of how products are designed and made.
Each year, every child will get the opportunity to take part in a Design and Technology project, building upon their prior knowledge from the previous key stage.
The aim of teaching DT at our school is:
- To develop pupil’s love of a creative and hands on subject where skills are developed throughout their primary school journey.
- To develop the courage to make mistakes during the design process. To have the resilience to build upon their previous design, understanding that mistakes are a part of the learning process.
- To have hope that they have the skills they have learnt enable them to produce a finished product fits the design brief.
Implementation
In DT we follow the national curriculum, where the children follow a three part learning model built around designing, making and evaluating. These three skills are broken down to create a progressive and coherently model which children will progress through during their time at St Luke’s. Children will develop their skills in the following areas:
- Design – children will begin a project by researching and learning about a designer. They will design purposeful, functional, appealing products for themselves and other users based on a design criteria.
- Make – children will select from and use a range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks. For example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing.
- Evaluate – children will explore and evaluate a range of existing products. They will also evaluate their own ideas and products against a design criteria.
Children’s technical skills are developed as part of the ‘make’ stage through the development of different practical knowledge and skills. Children will learn about materials and structures, mechanisms, textiles and food and nutrition. When children are in key stage 2, they will develop their technical knowledge and skills to electrical systems.
As children progress through the school, they will take more ownership over their design projects.
Impact
We aim for all children to achieve the progressive statements outlined in the St Luke’s progression of skills by the end of KS2. Children’s knowledge and skills is assessed continually throughout their DT units of learning.