St Thomas More Primary Design Technology Curriculum

Through our provision of excellent Catholic education, our aim is to ensure that we deliver a high-quality design and technology curriculum that inspires children to design and make products for real life problems. They will consider the values, wants and needs of the users and tailor the products they make to suit them. Pupils will draw on knowledge from maths, science, engineering, computing and art in order to build a secure knowledge of design and technology. The evaluation of current and past design and technology, pupils will develop a critical understanding of the impact on the wider world. Our school curriculum for design and technology ensures that all pupils: develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world; build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users; critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others, and understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.

 Implementation:

Our curriculum is implemented through following the design, make and evaluate cycle with each stage rooted in increasingly technical knowledge and vocabulary. The designing process is rooted in real-life, relevant contexts to give meaning to learning. During the making process, children should be given the choice of a range of tools to choose from. They should attempt to be guided by their design ideas, but be given the freedom to innovate and change their design as they work. To evaluate, children should be able to evaluate their own products against a design criteria. Each of these steps should be rooted in technical knowledge and vocabulary. DT should be taught to a high standard, where each of the stages should be given equal weight.

 Impact:

We measure the impact of our curriculum through:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes.
• A celebration of learning for each term, which demonstrates progression across the school.
• Pupil discussions about their learning, demonstrating their thoughts, ideas and evaluations of work.