Design and Technology

Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement for D&T

Intent

At St Mary’s CofE Primary we want to ensure that all the D&T taught enables children to design, make and evaluate functional products with users and purposes in mind. We aim to inspire children through a broad range of practical experiences to create innovative designs which solve real and relevant problems within a variety of different contexts. They will evaluate existing products and then take risks and innovate when designing and creating solutions to the problems. As part of the process, time is built in to reflect, evaluate and improve on prototypes using design criteria throughout to support this process. 

Through these lessons, we intend to inspire pupils to develop a love of Design and Technology and see how it has helped to shape the ever-evolving technological world they live in.

Our D&T curriculum reflects our five school values:

Implementation

Each year group will cover 3 units of work over the year.  These will usually be taught in a block at the end of each term. Our D&T curriculum has a coherently planned sequence of lessons to help teachers ensure they have progressively covered the knowledge, understanding and skills required in the National Curriculum.

The areas of D&T covered are: mechanisms, structures, food, textiles, mechanical systems and electrical systems. These have been carefully distributed between consecutive year groups.

Our chosen scheme, Projects on a Page, is based on the six essentials of good practice in D&T. Teacher’s follow these in their planning and in the production of the work booklet that accompanies each project. 

• User – children should have a clear idea of who they are designing and making products for, considering their needs, wants, interests or preferences. The user could be themselves, an imaginary character, another person, client, consumer or a specific target audience. 
• Purpose – children should know what the products they design and make are for. Each product should perform a clearly defined task that can be evaluated in use. 
• Functionality – children should design and make products that function in some way to be successful. Products often combine aesthetic qualities with functional characteristics. In D&T, it is insufficient for children to design and make products which are purely aesthetic.
• Design Decisions – when designing and making, children need opportunities to make informed decisions such as selecting materials, components and techniques and deciding what form the products will take, how they will work, what task they will perform and who they are for.
• Innovation – when designing and making, children need some scope to be original with their thinking. Projects that encourage innovation lead to a range of design ideas and products being developed, characterised by engaging, open-ended starting points for children's learning.
• Authenticity – children should design and make products that are believable, real and meaningful to themselves i.e. not replicas or reproductions or models which do not provide opportunities for children to make design decisions with clear users and purposes in mind.

Impact

The impact of our D&T curriculum can be seen by talking to the children about their interest in this subject and seeing evidence in their work books, class scrap books and on displays around the school.

Children’s attainment is updated on Target Tracker throughout the year and attainment steps are updated termly. This allows the class teacher and subject lead to monitor the progress of all children across the school.

Children use technical vocabulary accurately and can be seen to improve their resilience and perseverance by continually evaluating and improving their work. The children in school can speak confidently about their D&T work and their skills.

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