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Design & Technology

Our Design & Technology Curriculum

DT is the designing and making of products that meet a need.

Our Definition of Design and Technology

Who leads Design & Technology and what is their vision?

The DT leader at our school is Lucy Swift - who is also the teacher in Class 1.  For further information about the DT curriculum, or for other support, she can be contacted via email.  lswift@scarcliffe.org.uk

The subject leader's vision for DT is to ensure that every child leaves our school with the knowledge and practical skills to lead healthy, independent lives. She wants children to develop their imagination and creativity and to learn from their successes and failures to develop resilience. Finally, the vision is for children to have practical, fun and engaging DT lessons at school.

Links to our core abilities

We have identified seven core abilities that we hope to develop through our curriculum offer.  

  • Questioning and curiosity
  • Critical thinking and open-mindedness
  • Perseverance and resilience
  • Communication
  • Independence
  • Team work
  • Creativity 

We can develop many of these core abilities through effective DT teaching, but we particularly focus on developing critical thinking and open-mindedness, perseverance and resilience, independence and creativity through our DT lessons.

D&T Curriculum Intent

At Scarcliffe Primary School, we have five main intents that we hope to deliver through our DT curriculum:

  1. To be able to design a wide range of products which solve problems within a variety of contexts.
  2. To use a range of tools, techniques and materials to make a range of products.
  3. To evaluate existing products, as well as their own, against their own design criteria.
  4. To develop and apply their growing technical knowledge when designing and making products.
  5. To learn how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating. 

In order to achieve this, we have developed our curriculum intent under the five main headings:

Design - To be able to design a wide range of products which solve problems within a variety of contexts.

Make - To use a range of tools, techniques and materials to make a rage of products.

Evaluate - To evaluate existing products, as well as their own, against their own design criteria.

Technical Knowledge - To develop and apply their growing technical knowledge when designing and making products.

Cooking and nutrition - To learn how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating.

Our curriculum intent document for DT (see below) shows how these areas are developed progressively during a pupil's time at Scarcliffe. We are confident that our intent will provide children with the knowledge and practical skills to lead healthy, independent lives.

SPS DT Curriculum Intent V4 (PDF)

How is D&T Implemented?

At Scarcliffe, we use the DT National Curriculum objectives as a basis for our intent and planning.

The units taught in each class have been well-thought-out to cover all objectives in the National Curriculum over a two-year cycle. Two high quality units of DT are taught per class per year. These are planned out in our DT overview.

DT is sometimes taught as a stand-alone lesson each week or is blocked depending on our topic during a particular term. It is not taught every term as it coincides with Art.

We work hard to develop a structure for DT over a unit. At the start of the planning process, teachers plan the unit by looking at what they want the children to produce by the end and the skills that they need to develop to achieve a quality outcome. Some specific skills are explicitly taught and modelled to the children as well as key vocabulary used. Safety and hygiene advice is shared with the children. Teachers develop a DT booklet driven by the intent and the goal for the end product. The design process follows these steps:

1. Evaluation of existing products/ designers.

2. Generate design criteria.

3. Develop technical knowledge - skills specific.

4. Designing/generating ideas.

5. Making.

6. Evaluation of finished product.

7. Vocabulary page.

Our Curriculum Overview

As mentioned above, we have created our own DT overview. Please see this below. Note - the letters and numbers (e.g. D6) refer to the statements in the curriculum intent document:

SPS DT Curriculum Overview (PDF)

Monitoring the impact of teaching in D&T

We understand the importance of teaching high quality DT lessons to all children and leaders monitor the impact of teaching in a variety of ways. 

Most importantly, they spend time in classes as well as talking to staff and pupils about their learning. Leaders spend time looking at DT booklets to ensure a consistency of approach and to check that children are making good progress. The subject leader completes booklet looks alongside pupils so they can explain their learning and views about DT in general. A range of other strategies are used to monitor standards and all this information is collated and shared with staff. 

Assessment Data

Staff assess children against the curriculum intent statements each year. Information is centred around determining which children are not yet at the expected standard and who are very secure within the expected standard.  This provides us with information to inform our future teaching.

Useful Weblinks

Here are some great websites to support learning in DT:

Design & Technology at Home

We do not set homework as such for DT.  However, each term class teachers send home a homework menu linked to their current topic and these often include options related to DT.

We are always very impressed when children go home and produce work at home linked to the learning they have done in DT lessons at school.  This is regularly shared and children receive recognition for having a positive attitude towards their learning. 

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