Intent
Through our DT curriculum, we aim to provide all children with a broad and balanced curriculum, which prepares them for life beyond primary education. We encourage ‘children to use their creativity, imagination and problem-solving skills to design and make products within a variety of contexts, including ‘Cooking and Nutrition’, Textiles’, ‘Structures’ and ‘Mechanisms and Control’, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. The children work as individuals and as members of a team to think creatively and solve practical problems.
DT is an inspiring practical subject, which combines both creative and methodological approaches. The children develop their skills in investigation, analysis, planning, communicating ideas, problem solving, designing, making and evaluating.
Wherever possible, we link DT work to other areas of learning within the curriculum, including Science, Art or Literacy.
Implementation
Children who attend St Cuthbert’s Primary School study Design and Technology with their class teacher. Our DT curriculum is designed to progressively develop children's practical and problem-solving skills through weekly hour lessons for one half term of each term (which is approximately 18 hours of DT lessons per year group).
The curriculum is divided up into areas of key skills : Cooking/Nutrition, Textiles, Structures and Mechanisms/Control. Children will study three of these areas each year, with planning ensuring they access the whole range throughout their primary school career at regular intervals to ensure retention of knowledge / skills and progression. Cooking/Nutrition is taught every year as we consider it to be an important life-skill for our children, equipping them to make healthy choices for themselves now and in the future.
Our DT curriculum ensures that children are accessing work at age related expectations, with regular opportunities to be challenged through higher level objectives. Children are assessed according to age related expectations in line with curriculum requirements.
Impact
Our DT curriculum is planned carefully to ensure progression of knowledge and skills. We measure the impact of our curriculum through pupil discussions about their learning (their thoughts, ideas, processing, and evaluation of their work). We also assess how well the children have developed their knowledge and skills using the ‘Progression of Skills’ document.