Design and Technology

Intent

At Brentnall Community Primary, we believe that Design and Technology is an area that supports pupils in developing a range of life skills such as cooking and learning to evaluate through trial and error.

Design and Technology is a key area to develop pupils’ skills in for their future employment. We feel that all pupils should learn to experience trial and error, problem solving and learning how to be successful through creativity, examining and evaluating their projects.

Design and Technology is used throughout different industries, so it is vital we equip pupils with a strong foundation to continue to build on through the following years in their education.

A key skill we aim to teach pupils through Design and Technology is to plan for a purpose, research their product, have a finished product in mind and then through trial and error produce a product. After we teach pupils how to evaluate in a respectful way but to also be effective in their evaluations.

Staff use Design and Technology to support learning through a wide range of projects. Staff focus on learning through collaboration and develop a range of skills including speaking and listening and learning how to handle having different ideas in a group. We aim to give pupils a snapshot of many areas that Design and Technology fit into to help inspire the next generation of designers.

Implementation

Through a range of projects, we teach pupils to design, make and evaluate. We also look at items from different times in history by making Victorian toys to a Greek Trojan horse, and learning the mummification process of the Ancient Egyptians. We look at a wide range of skills from pottery to cookery to give a wide range of experiences to help shape pupils interest.

The National Curriculum for Design and Technology aims to ensure that all pupils:

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 users
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

Impact

The impact of our Design and Technology curriculum is that pupils learn to take what we already have and look at how to improve it or to be inspired to create something new. They learn to understand that a process can change over time and improvements don’t always mean it was wrong, but that they found something that is new and to be the future that help find solutions to problems we face.

Further Information

For information on the National Curriculum for Design & Technology please click here
For information on our school’s Long Term Plans for Design & Technology please click here
For more information on how Design & Technology is taught within Early Years please click here