Design Technology (DT)

At Ramsden Infants we believe that Design Technology prepares children to take an active part in the development of today’s rapidly changing world.

It encourages children to become independent, creative thinkers that can solve problems independently and as part of a team. Our curriculum allows the children to be creative and imaginative, when designing and making products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. Our curriculum allows children to tap into local opportunities and build connections between Design Technology in school and the wider world.

Implementation

Teachers will follow a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum. Whole school planning ensures that there is a clear skills progression across EYFS and Key Stage 1.

While the EYFS and National Curriculum forms the foundation of our curriculum we ensure that children learn additional skills, knowledge and understanding and enhance our curriculum as and when necessary.

Year group teachers will plan to make sure each year group undertake a construction topic, a textiles topic and a food/drink topic. The delivery of lessons will follow the design cycle of “Research, Design Make and Evaluate.”

Our curriculum allows children to both be independent learners and collaborative learners. This will give children ownership over their particular project while also developing their teamwork skills when required to work as part of a group.

All children are provided with suitable learning opportunities by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this through a range of strategies: Setting common tasks that are open ended and can have a variety of results; providing a range of challenges through the provision of different resources and using additional adults to support the work of individual children or small groups.

Impact

Children will have a clear enjoyment of and confidence in Design Technology and have developed skills that they will then apply to other areas of the curriculum. They will be able to demonstrate the knowledge they have learned when using tools or skills in other areas of the curriculum and in opportunities out of school. As designers children will develop skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood.

Teachers will gather evidence of what individual pupils know understand and can do in design technology by observing them at work, listening to and discussing processes with them. Teachers will provide the subject leader with periodic and end of key stage judgements assessed against the National Curriculum objectives.

The subject leader is responsible for the monitoring of standards, both of children’s work and the quality of teaching and learning in this subject. The subject leader will support teachers by providing a planning overview, monitoring existing planning and keep the staff up to date with CPD opportunities. Children’s progress will be monitored by the subject leader by having pupil discussions, taking examples of work and classroom observations.