Intent

Our Design and Technology lessons are centred around practical activities which are firmly rooted in real life scenarios and encourage children to become creative problem-solvers. Throughout their time at the school, the children will develop their practical making skills alongside their understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues.  They will be encouraged to take risks, develop new innovative designs and to be reflective learners through having opportunities to evaluate their own work as well as the design and work of others within school and the wider world.

Through giving praise to celebrate success, and words of advice when products need further work, the children will become evaluative learners. As well as designing, making and evaluating products, pupils in every Year Group will also carry out lessons on cooking and nutrition. Through these lessons we aim to build a love of cooking in our children, give them an understanding of the importance of both a balanced diet and food hygiene and teach them a crucial life skill which will enable them to feed themselves and others affordably and well, now and in later life.

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Impact

In order to ensure clear coverage and progression across the school, we follow the ‘Kapow Primary’ scheme of work. This scheme equips all teachers and support staff with the knowledge and resources needed for every lesson, no matter their experience or confidence levels.

All year groups take part in 4 blocked Design and Technology weeks during the school year when the subject is taught throughout each afternoon. This 'blocking' gives the subject a high profile in school and allows children to see a project through to completion moving in sequence through the plan, make, evaluate sequence.

One blocked week in every Year Group is devoted to cooking and nutrition whilst the others cover a mixture of textiles, structures, mechanical systems and electrical over the four years. Throughout the weeks, there are many opportunities for cross curricular links with a wide range of subjects most notably Science, Maths, Computing and English. Alongside our curriculum provision for Design and Technology, we also provide all pupils with the opportunity to participate in a DT based after school club.

Our curriculum isn’t limited to the indoor learning, we embrace any opportunity to use our growing Design and Technology skills in the great outdoors and our picturesque school grounds. All classes have a weekly Forest Schools session lead by an experienced practioner where there are frequent opportunities for them to design, build, use a range of cutting tools and cook on an open fire building on the knowledge and skills developed during our Design and Technology Weeks.

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Implementation

The children’s knowledge and understanding of both specific project-based DT skills and the design, make and evaluate process will be continually  assessed by teachers during the blocked Design and Technology weeks and regularly re-visited using cross-curricular links throughout the year to ensure that the children are remembering key learning. Summative assessment grids, based on the subject KSU document, will be completed by class teachers at the end of each blocked Design and Technology week allowing each child's progress both within and across year groups to be seen. The children's Design and Technology books move through the school with them enabling them to see the progress that they have made across all areas of the DT curriculum. When they leave Hallam Fields, the children will be well equipped to take of the challenges of the subject at KS3.

 

Useful Websites

https://www.exploratorium.edu/pie/ideas.html#page – They have a idea library that shows models that could be made.

http://www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/ – Lots of Food Technology information..

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/themes/letsbuildtogether/365-activities​ – Links to Lego building.

https://www.stem.org.uk/ - Loads on here – projects, home learning activities, teaching points.

https://www.deliaonline.com/ - This site is not only full of recipes but has a cookery school section which has a skills section and various lessons required for good, home cooked food.

https://www.littleinventors.org/ - Daily challenges for little inventors.