Our Lady of Mount Carmel RC Primary School

Design & Technology

Our Design & Technology Lead is Mrs. Sugg.

Intent

Through design and technology at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, children’s academic and practical skills are developed by encouraging them to solve problems based on real life contexts. All children have the opportunity to learn through practical exploration of real life products and then to use this knowledge to design and make their own products. It aims to encourage children to take risks, to develop new innovative designs and to be reflective learners by giving them opportunities to evaluate their own work, as well as the design and work of others within school and the wider world. Children are given time to test their own products and make adjustments which enable them to change their designs and improve their end product. Looking at the work of others, giving praise to celebrate success and words of advice when products need further work, enable children to become evaluative learners.

Implementation

Our design & technology curriculum has been developed using guidance from the Design Technology Association. Over the course of an academic year, pupils take part in three DT projects (including 1 food). The focus of these projects allow children to build on previous learning, demonstrating progression of skills.

Each project is driven by a design brief and a set of design criteria (written by the pupils). Pupils are encouraged to follow the design cycle: investigate, design, plan, create, evaluate in order to progress. The teaching of key vocabulary is an important part of each unit, which is well modelled by staff and builds upon previous learning. Cross curricular links are made where appropriate.

Children are assessed against a list of criteria (based on NC objectives) for each unit and an overall judgement is made at the end of the unit as to whether they are working at, above or below age related expectation. Assessment informs future planning, identifying any gaps in knowledge or skills, ensuring that children have every opportunity to develop as inquisitive DT learners.

Impact

Our Design and Technology curriculum, enables children to become evaluative, iterate and to develop perseverance – skills which they can apply to other areas of the curriculum and in their everyday lives. Children become more aware of the design process behind everyday items and develop a greater awareness of how things work and specific historical designers. They develop their skills in using a variety of materials, tools and equipment which enhances their knowledge of which tools, equipment and materials to use to make their products.

Aspirations

In order to inspire and prepare our pupils for the world of work, we want them to understand how learning about Design and Technology can be useful to them in everyday life and in their future careers.

As Designers our pupils could be: