Design and Technology
Our Mission (2022)
Here at Beech Street Primary School, our mission is to provide children with the skills needed to participate in a rapidly changing world, with opportunities to think creatively and design useful products for an audience, developing critical minds, always thinking of ways to solve purposeful problems and improve their own and others’ ideas. We aim to integrate classroom learning with the worlds of industry, digital technology, and design by inviting people into the classroom either face to face or via technology links, to share their expertise and experiences with our children. We aim to ultimately develop children who are confident to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens who are ready for the next phase of their education and inspired for their future careers.
Here are a few books that really inspire children with their Design and Technology....
Hi.
I'm Mrs Douglas, the Design and Technology lead here at Beech Street Primary School.
Take a look at our pages to see what we cover in our Design and Technology curriculum and what we have been up to recently.
Intent
It is our intention to provide our children with a variety of creative, inspiring and practical activities, where they are taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in the iterative process of designing and making, in a range of relevant contexts.
Implementation
It was with our intention in mind that we chose the KAPOW scheme of learning as a framework to follow when planning learning.
This scheme also provides short videos by expert teachers showing children how to carry out key tasks at the start of each lesson, enabling all children regardless of ability to participate in all tasks. Furthermore, up to date CPD and teaching resources are provided before each unit of work, ensuring staff are confident when teaching the skills needed to ensure children achieve to a high standard in each lesson.
There is are a clear progression of skills throughout the scheme, which regularly revisit the following strands of learning and build upon previous learning.
- Cooking and nutrition: Where food comes from, balanced diet, preparation and cooking skills
- Mechanical systems: Mimic natural movements using mechanisms such as cams, followers, levers and sliders
- Textiles: Fastening, sewing and decorative fabric techniques including cross stitch, blanket stitch and appliqué
- Electrical systems: Functional series circuits, individual circuit components, circuit diagrams and electrical products
- Structures: Material functional and aesthetic properties, strength and stability, stiffen and reinforce structures
- Digital world: Program products to monitor and control, develop designs with 2D and 3D CAD software
In our first year of using this scheme we have decided to use the combined framework which follows one half term of Design Technology and one-half term of Art. The long-term vision is to follow the whole scheme for both subjects, therefore deepening knowledge and developing skills and understanding further over time.
Assessment
At the end of each unit of work, children are grouped together according to their achievements, in line with age related expectations.
Links to other areas of the Curriculum
Children are taught to use and apply the skills gained through Design Technology, through other curriculum areas where possible, such as Mathematics, Science, Computing and Art. The opportunities to use and apply Design Technology in the curriculum are plentiful and our teaching staff have the flexibility to apply this knowledge and develop these skills within their teaching, as they see appropriate to their planning and pupils.
Differentiation/SEND
We recognise that in all classes children have a wide range of abilities in Design Technology and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children. We achieve this by:
- setting tasks that are open-ended and can have a variety of responses
- setting tasks of increasing difficulty
- grouping children in mixed ability groups to encourage support and the sharing of ideas and opinions
- providing resources of different complexity depending on the ability of the child
- using teaching assistants, to support children individually or in groups
Health & Safety
Pupils are taught to use tools in a safe and appropriate manner and supervision/ support is provided for any tools identified within the risk assessment to be at higher risk, ie. knives, saws, etc.
Progression of skills document...
Progression-of-skills-DT-14-21.pdf (kapowprimary.com)
Curriculum overview...
Long-term plan D&T 21-01-2022 (kapowprimary.com)
Vocabulary Progression through the years...
