Intent
At Escomb Primary School, Design and technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject with the following aims – to ensure 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 uses
• 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 intend to involve children in looking at a variety of objects and themes, being creative in coming up with their own designs, making things based on their design and evaluating their success along the way.
Implementation
For a child to be a designer, it is important to follow the core process which is to design, make and evaluate while learning key skills and technical knowledge.
Design Technology (DT) tasks are linked to other foundation subjects where links are meaningful. Lessons are taught through a carefully sequentially planned curriculum using Focus Education. Learning may be ‘blocked’ so that a particular task or activity may be developed over a few consecutive days.
In the Foundation Stage, children develop their DT skills through child-initiated activities of cutting, gluing, joining and creating. They are taught to review their own work and consider ways to overcome problems they have met along the way.
At Escomb Primary School, children in all year groups will work in groups, or individually, on careful development of their design ideas. They seek to apply these in a range of challenging tasks using a range of materials and processes. Time is given to the evaluation of what they create so that the quality of their work can be improved each subsequent time. Cooking and nutrition is also an aspect of the curriculum, where children need to use basic principles of nutrition in a healthy and varied diet, and gain a deeper understanding of where food comes from, including an understanding of seasonality. They also need to learn basic cooking skills, with predominantly savoury dishes, using a variety of techniques.
Impact
The teaching of DT at Escomb Primary School results in children enjoying and appreciating everyday products from the world around them. Children are able to question why a product has been created and are able to assess its practical and aesthetic qualities. They in turn, develop good practical skills with a variety of tools and materials. Children will develop their creative abilities to solve problems and build their resilience when dealing with difficulties. Children’s aspirations of themselves improve as they learn the possibilities of careers within the Design and Technology industry
