Wimborne First School & Nursery

DT Curriculum

DT Intent statement

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs. 

Intent

At Wimborne First School we value the importance of Design and Technology. The Design and Technology curriculum at our school prepares children to deal with tomorrow’s rapidly changing world. It encourages children to become independent, creative problem solvers and thinkers - both as individuals and as part of a team. It enables them to identify the needs and opportunities offered by a product and to respond to them by developing a range of ideas and by making products and systems. Through the study of Design and Technology, they combine knowledge with practical skills to develop an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues, as well as an understanding of function and industry. This allows them to reflect on and evaluate past and present technology, its uses and impacts.

At Wimborne First, we intend Design and Technology to be creative and practical and provide children with the chance to problem solve and develop their own creative ideas. We aim to provide our children with the opportunity to use their imagination to design and make products within a variety of contexts, to provide motivation and meaning to their learning. Children will be taught a range of topics including mechanisms, textiles, cooking and nutrition and electrical systems (in Key Stage 2). Through hands-on, practical experiences we aim for children to leave Year 4 with knowledge and skills of DT which will inspire children to be the chefs, engineers, sculptures, carpenters, designers and architects of the future. We recognise the important role of DT in preparing our children with skills for life which will enable them to be creative individuals who enjoy problem solving and feel secure with creative risk-taking in an increasingly technological world.

Implementation:

DT across the school in is taught in ‘unit’ blocks throughout the year. The children complete 3 units of DT across the year and will be learning either DT or Art each half term. This is to enable the children to achieve depth in their learning and build a solid foundation of the key concepts that run throughout our DT curriculum. Our curriculum is structured to focus on the progression of skills across these areas; textiles, mechanisms, cooking and nutrition and electrical systems (Year 4) As children progress, they are able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of DT.

Impact:

Assessment in DT aims to gather evidence of the children’s knowledge. This is done through a range of assessment activities that take place at the end of each unit such as a quiz, a final product and an evaluation of this product. These are all designed to enable the children to have the opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and understanding that they have gained over the course of their unit of learning.  Teachers also use AFL throughout each unit to ensure that key knowledge is building and to also highlight any misconceptions that can be addressed. Retrieval practise is also built into many lessons and given at the start of each new unit. The aim of this is to ensure that children’s knowledge continues to build throughout each year. 

Evidence of progression and achievement will be seen in examples of children’s’ work which will be stored in their DT books.

As a result of effective implementation, children will be able to apply their skills and knowledge in other areas of learning.  The confidence and understanding within each unit and the concepts will increase and mean that the children can be more independent and experienced when applying their skills to their DT projects.