Design Technology

Intent

While the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things, our curriculum intent continues to apply. The flexibility our curriculum provides, empowers us to make the decisions needed to provide a curriculum that is adaptable and responsive to the potential diverse needs of individual learners and will be vital during our Recovery Phase. At Radcliffe Primary, design technology is often taught and used within other areas of the curriculum to support and enhance the work carried out within planned topics to create cross-curricular links. A wide range of resources are available to support design technology teaching. Children are taught to use equipment safely and appropriately whilst creating a product they will have designed and will then evaluate. The Reactive curriculum team is responsible for monitoring and reviewing planning and ensuring coverage of the subject across each key stage. In all classes we realise there are children with differing abilities and styles of learning and we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this through a range of strategies:

Setting tasks that are open-ended and can have a variety of responses
Setting tasks of increasing difficulty
Providing a range of resources and tools
Having additional adults support children when appropriate

Implementation

Through our teaching of Design and Technology, we aim to:

Develop pupils’ creative, technical and practical expertise.
Stimulate pupils’ interest and enthusiasm for designing and making.
Encourage children’s capability and confidence in their own ideas.
Provide pupils with an understanding of the ways in which people from the past and present have used Design and Technology to meet their needs.
Develop pupils’ curiosity and interest in the designed and made world.
Foster a sense of responsibility in pupils to use a range of tools and materials safely.
Promote an ability to criticise constructively in order to evaluate their own ideas and products and those of others.
Encourage pupils to take risks, and become resourceful, enterprising and capable citizens needed to excel in an increasingly technological world.
Provide pupils with a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users.
Instil a love of cooking.

Impact

The class teacher will continually carry out formative assessment in DT lessons. This will be done through questioning, observations, discussions and evidence in DT work. Teacher’s will then track their children once a term and assess whether they are WT, WTP, WA, AG or GD. DT will be recorded in Art and Design books as well as photograph of finished products. The Reactive Curriculum Team is responsible for keeping an overview of the standard of children’s work and for the quality of teaching. The work of the curriculum team also involves supporting colleagues, being informed about current developments and providing a strategic lead and direction for the subject in the school.

Design Technology Overview