Design and Technology at Byers Green
“Design is not just what it looks like, design is how it works”
Steve Jobs.
At Byers Green Primary School, we believe Design Technology should inspire children to be innovative and creative thinkers who have an appreciation for the product design cycle through ideation, creation and evaluation.
We believe that creativity and the use of imagination lies at the heart of children’s learning and development. We want children to learn to think creatively in order to design and make products and apply problem solving in a variety of contexts.
Design Technology allows children to apply the knowledge and skills learned in other curriculum areas such as Mathematics, Science, Computing and Art when developing and designing products. Children are given the opportunity to evaluate key events and individuals who have helped shape the world, showing the real impact of design and technology on our everyday lives to inspire children to become the next generation of engineers, designers, chefs and architects.
The National Curriculum for design and technology aims to ensure 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
Design and Technology education involves two important elements – learning about the designed and made world and how things work and learning to design and make functional products for particular purposes and users.
Our Design Technology curriculum is carefully structured from the Early Years Foundation Stage to Upper Key Stage 2 to provide a progressive sequence of learning, building upon skills, knowledge and vocabulary to enable children to develop a deep understanding of the principles of design, materials, and technology.
To ensure that our curriculum is engaging and builds on prior knowledge, we have planned our themes across a two-year cycle. This means that children will have the opportunity to cover a range of themes, without repeating content, while being able to consolidate and develop key skills.
At Byers Green the design process is fundamental and runs throughout our curriculum.
The Design and Technology National Curriculum outlines the three main stages of the design process: design, make and evaluate. Each stage of the design process is underpinned by technical knowledge which encompasses the contextual, historical, and technical understanding required for each strand.
Using themed projects enables us to captivate the interests of the children, nurture their creativity and allow them to innovate, ultimately allowing them to develop the technical knowledge to design, make and evaluate functional and appealing products for a particular purpose and user. A key factor in the design process is bringing context and relevance to real life and therefore, meaning to learning.
Cooking and nutrition is also an important part of design and technology. The children learn about a balanced diet and making healthy lifestyle choices, resulting in strong cross-curricular links with PE. Children are taught key food technology skills, from putting together fruit kebabs to making bread, building up life skills ready for when they leave our school and later on in life.
Our Design and Technology Curriculum has been developed to provide lessons and projects that demonstrate progression. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes; pupil discussions about their learning, which includes discussion of their thoughts, ideas, the design process and evaluations of work. As designers, children will develop skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood.
It is our aim at Byers Green that our pupils will be able to:
- work collaboratively, constructively and productively with others.
- investigate, research and ask questions in order to identify the user’s needs and requirements.
- identify the key features of the product.
- be creative in order to design a product which fits the purpose of its target audience.
- be resourceful and think carefully about using suitable, sustainable and ethically resourced materials.
- Have the knowledge, skills and understanding to use the appropriate tools, equipment and materials to make their products and show good safety working practices.
- Have the ability to self-evaluate their designs, skills and products in order to learn and improve their skills and knowledge.