Design & Technology
'Design is thinking made visual.' Saul Bass
What we want to achieve
At Sunnyfields Primary School, we seek to provide a range of exciting DT opportunities for children. We aim to provide a motivating and meaningful context for children’s learning that will spark their curiosity.
We intend for all units to include the following objectives:
- Investigative activities - where children critically evaluate existing products to inform
their own design considerations. - Focused practical tasks - where children are given the opportunity to learn and practise new skills and techniques which they can utilise in making products.
- ‘Design and make’ assignments - where the children are given the opportunity to be creative, using what they have learned through previous activities.
- Evaluating an end product - where children decide if it is fit for its purpose and what changes could be made to improve their design.
How we want to achieve it
During their time at our school, children will understand that DT involves making something for somebody for some purpose and will make functional products with a clear purpose in mind.
Particular skills will be taught in each year group and skills will grow in complexity with each year group, building on the children’s prior knowledge. Students will evaluate existing products, as well as their own work, throughout the making process and evaluate their final product against their own design criteria. They will develop an understanding of the ways in which people have designed products in the past and present to meet their needs and creativity and innovation will be developed through designing and making.
To help implement the requirements for DT in an imaginative way, teachers use
the PlanBEE scheme of work for primary design and technology. Each unit embeds the essentials of good practice in DT. Specific skills are explained clearly, broken down into each step, supported by simple, visual appendices. This ensures that children will receive a rich and informative curriculum. PlanBEE is based on the six essentials of good practice in D&T. These need to be in place in teachers' planning to ensure children’s learning is genuinely design and technological in nature.
Design and Technology Curriculum Map- click here
Impact
Our children enjoy the opportunity to express their creativity through design.
They self-evaluate their end pieces against its strengths and weaknesses, then offer ways to improve their work. During both key stages, children gain skills in collaboration, investigation, construction, evaluation and design. Crucially, children are prepared with skills that are transferable into future work life. In each key stage, children will build upon skills each year through focus on the same themes.
