Intent: Our vision for Design & Technology

At St Teresa’s, we encourage our children to use their creativity and imagination to design and make products that solve relevant problems within in real life contexts and fit for purpose. It is an inspiring and practical subject. Our children are taught how to select from and use a range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks, with increasing accuracy as they progress, year on year. Our aim is help them to become the creative designers of the future.

Implementation: How we teach Design & Technology

In the foundation stage, our curriculum lends itself to an integrated approach to learning through quality learning opportunities, as well as independent and self-initiated learning. Through the school, our curriculum is topic based so D&T is taught in a cross curricular way. We use ‘Cornerstones’ to cover the National Curriculum objectives and this inspires and sparks the children’s interest and imagination.  Progression is catered for by year group progression maps these demonstrate how key skills are developed over time. Pupils are taught  the designing process : to create, design, plan, make and  evaluate. These are key skills they can use in all aspect of life. Our Design & Technology curriculum ensures pupils are given the opportunity to design and make real life object, with specific purposes for specific people.

Impact:

Skills such as experimenting, problem solving, thinking critically, resilience, designing, creating and evaluating caters for developing the whole child, also allowing for transferal of these skills into other subjects and preparing for future challenges in life.

We are shaping our pupils to become the leaders of tomorrow, by equipping them with the core skills needed for their forthcoming experience in high school and beyond.

Pupils experience projects in a rigorous, planned manner. The process involved in all projects is to plan, design, make then finally evaluate. We provide opportunities for the growing of vegetables in our courtyard, which are used for cooking as part of the curriculum coverage.

Curriculum strengths:

• Knowledge, understanding and skills are developed in order to design and make high quality products, for a specific purpose, in line with the National Curriculum, year on year.
• Children experience growing and cooking vegetables.
• Children develop their questioning, evaluating and critical thinking skills.

Our community & families:

We often have family members who donate plants and vegetables for growing in our courtyard, as well as giving us support with maintenance. Home Learning D&T projects are a key way for our families to know what we are learning in school.

Diversity:

Diversity, inclusion and belonging matter to us. We ensure that children are aware that products made are suitable for all, irrelevant of the cultural background. When looking at existing products we talk about their origins and how culture and history may have impacted their development. We look at materials and products and discuss if they are ethically produced.