Design Technology

Design and Technology

At Walsh Memorial CE Infant School, we have created a vision for the teaching of Design & Technology at our school.

 Intent

At Walsh Memorial CE Infant School, we believe that Design & Technology (DT) is an exciting, inspiring and increasingly important area of learning in our modern technological world. Building on our pupils’ natural enthusiasm for building and creating, we strive to teach them to become independent, imaginative problem-solvers and thinkers. We encourage our children to design and make products which solve problems in innovative ways. Our children develop their own creative design ideas, learning how to take risks, becoming resourceful and inventive. We seek to teach our children the importance of perseverance and adaptability during the design process.

The Cooking and Nutrition units planned for KS1 teach the children the basic principles of nutrition and healthy eating as well as beginning to acquire the crucial life skill of cooking for themselves and others in later life.

Implementation

At Walsh Memorial CE Infant School, DT is taught following the aims and content of the Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage guidance and the National Curriculum DT programmes of study in Key Stage 1. It is taught through cross-curricular topics in EYFS and termly discrete DT units in KS1 (with cross-curricular links).

Our teaching of DT provides our pupils with a range of practical opportunities to develop the creative, technical and practical skills needed to perform everyday tasks confidently.

In Early Years, the children are provided with learning opportunities that enable them to:-

• Construct with a purpose in mind.
• Use simple tools safely, competently and appropriately.
• Build and construct with a wide range of objects, selecting appropriate resources and adapting their work when necessary.
• Select the tools and techniques they need to shape, assemble and join the materials they are using.

The DT units in KS1 have been carefully planned to secure the progression of the skills pupils require in order to design and make purposeful, functional, appealing products for themselves and other users based on design criteria. Children will learn how to research products and to critique and test their ideas and evaluate the work of others. Many units have links to other areas of the curriculum such as History (making soup on Castle Day) and English (creating a class ‘moving picture’ book).

Across the school, children work in a range of ways to achieve their end-goal:-

• Independent learning – working individually allows children to have ownership of their work and direct their own learning.
• Collaborative learning – working in pairs or as part of a group enables children to appreciate the importance of working as a team, expressing their own ideas and listening to the opinions of others in order to achieve a common goal.

Children will be taught a range of skills to ensure that they are aware of the health and safety issues relating to the tasks undertaken such as the safe use of scissors or saws and the importance of hygiene when cooking or preparing food,

Through the specific teaching of appropriate technological vocabulary, our children are able to articulate and describe their design process, the skills they have applied, the equipment they have used and the features of the product they have made.

Impact

As designers, our children will develop the skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood. They will develop a secure understanding of the design process underpinned by the skills, and techniques required to create a specific product and will have the vocabulary and knowledge to communicate and discuss their design ideas. They will have an enthusiasm for identifying and solving problems in creative yet practical ways and are inspired to develop innovative ways to tackle the design challenges presented by our rapidly changing world.

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks.

But of course, if you look deeper, it’s really how it works.”

 Steve Jobs

 “Technology makes possibilities. Design makes solutions.”

John Maeda

“As an engineer I’m constantly spotting problems and plotting how to solve them. Life is a mountain of solvable problems, and I enjoy that.”

James Dyson