Design Technology
Design Technology (DT) education involves two important elements - learning about how things work and learning to design and make functional products for particular purposes and users. At Black Torrington children will use their creativity and imagination to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values.
Children acquire and apply knowledge and understanding of materials and components, mechanisms and control systems, structures, existing products, quality and health and safety. The skills learned in DT also help with learning across the curriculum.
Design and Technology education helps develop children’s skills through collaborative working and problem-solving. They are encouraged to be creative and innovative, and are actively encouraged to think about important issues such as sustainability.
Implementation:
The implementation of the United Curriculum for Design & Technology reflects the broader teaching and learning principles listed below:
For Design & Technology in particular:
•Content is always carefully situated within existing schemas. Every unit considers the prior knowledge that is prerequisite for that unit and builds on that knowledge to develop a deeper understanding of that concept.
•Vertical concepts are used within lessons to connect aspects of learning.
•Disciplinary knowledge is explicitly taught to pupils and carefully sequenced to ensure pupils are provided with opportunities to practice these skills throughout the curriculum.
•Opportunities for extended, scholarly writing appear throughout the curriculum. These have a clear purpose and audience and, crucially, allow pupils to write as a technologist.
Teaching and Learning Principles:
The United Curriculum for Design & Technology provides all children, regardless of their background, with:
Substantive knowledge:
•Ensuring pupils master core content through the development of conceptual knowledge of structures, mechanisms, materials and programming in small steps, and the timely revisiting of this key knowledge.
•Ensuring that pupils are explicitly taught and have time to master procedural knowledge, including craftsmanship of cutting, shaping, joining and finishing as well as engineering in focused practical tasks.
•Making explicit and deliberate links to other curriculum subjects – particularly science – to ensure that pupils use and apply scientific concepts in a Design & Technology setting at the appropriate time. Pupils also draw on and further develop knowledge and skills first taught in Mathematics, History, Computing and Art & Design, due to the multi-disciplinary nature of Design & Technology.
Disciplinary knowledge:
•Reinforcing the iterative design process in the heart of every unit, and allowing pupils to build their understanding and ability to apply design values gradually from EYFS to Key Stage 2 and beyond.
•Ensuring that pupils know they are designers and engineers, who design a solution to fit a specific user and need; they are not led by outcomes. Pupils should be encouraged to design products using all of the knowledge they have developed across the curriculum.
•Explicitly teaching ways of designing, ways of generating ideas and ways of identifying user needs, to give pupils the tools they need to thrive as designers of the future.
Curiosity and excitement about the possibilities offered by Design & Technology:
•Ensuring that all pupils can see themselves reflected in the Design & Technology curriculum, by exploring the contributions made by a wide range of designers, past and present.
•Opportunities to develop character by understanding the difficulties faced by those designers and seeing how characteristics such as resilience and risk taking contributed towards success. Understanding the contribution that design and technology makes to creativity, culture, wealth and the well-being of a nation and that more opportunities exist than ever before due to technological advances.
The United Curriculum for Food provides all children, regardless of their background, with:
Substantive knowledge:
•Ensuring pupils master core content through the development of conceptual knowledge of food sources, safety, hygiene and nutrition in small steps, and the timely revisiting of this key knowledge.
•Ensuring that pupils are explicitly taught and have time to master procedural knowledge, including cooking skills of chopping, preparing, combining and heating in focused practical tasks.
•Making explicit and deliberate links to other curriculum subjects – particularly science – to ensure that pupils use and apply scientific concepts, such as nutrition and food chains, in a Food setting at the appropriate time.
Disciplinary knowledge:
•Ensuring that pupils are taught how to make food choices based on qualities like nutritional value; dietary requirements; cost; seasonality; food miles and carbon footprint of production; time to prepare; and quantities. These qualities are introduced in small steps but applied cumulatively so that by Year 6, pupils are able to make decisions based on a selection of them.
The ability, and desire, to cook balanced, sustainable meals for themselves and their family:
•Ensuring that the recipes and foods chosen reflect relevant cuisines from the local context, the UK and around the world.
•Providing recipes that are balanced and sustainable, which can be cooked after school in a family context.
The impact of the scheme of work can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. This is done through:
Products and pupil-conferencing
Talking to pupils about their work allows teachers to assess how much of the curriculum content is secure. These conversations are used most effectively to determine whether pupils have a good understanding of the vertical concepts, and if they can link recently taught content to learning from previous units.
• Formative assessment in lessons
There are opportunities for formative assessment in the lesson slides provided, and teachers continually adapt their lesson delivery to address misconceptions and ensure that pupils are keeping up with the content.
•Low-stakes summative assessment
We also use multiple-choice questions (or another low-stakes quiz) at the end of the unit to assess whether pupils have learned the core knowledge for that unit. These are used formatively, and teachers plan to fill gaps and address misconceptions before moving on.
In Design and technology, as in all subjects, we are adamant that children who are at risk of underachieving have their needs skill fully and consistently met to protect them from this risk. The Design and technology curriculum at Black Torrington Primary School contributes towards this aim by encouraging children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection. The curriculum engages, inspires and challenges pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to design and create their own products.
After completion of the entire scheme of work, pupils should leave school equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in the their secondary education and be innovative and resourceful members of society.