DT
The design and technology national curriculum allows children the opportunity to acquire a breadth of design skills, including those based around textiles, food, construction and a variety of other materials and processes. The curriculum set out below for each key stage ensures the full design and technology diet is consumed by our learners, hungry for new knowledge here at Monks Abbey. Each key stages’ projects include opportunities for textile work and food work, as well as the opportunity to work with many other materials and mechanisms (when applicable). It also ensures children’s skills are embedded and stretched throughout their time with us, here at Monks Abbey, through the use of targeted projects with key foci.
Design and technology is taught every term, in the form of a project. These projects can be implemented however the teacher sees fit, with many taking the ‘D&T Week’ approach (a full week’s topic lessons a term is focused around D&T), and some teaching D and T weekly/fortnightly on a rotation. The teaching of D&T is focused around 3 key words: design, make and evaluate. Design focuses around a design brief, criteria and market research into existing products. It also focuses on materials and why we may choose one over another, dependent on the brief. Make focuses on the physical skills the children must acquire, as set out below, for example: boiling, chopping, cutting, sewing, joining etc. Evaluate focuses on looking at our products, against our original brief. This includes peer and self-assessment and the opportunities to amend our designs, based around our assessments. Teachers will then show their assessments through the use of reflective diaries, kept within topic books, using a simple RAG system for the child’s attainment. This allows other teachers to build on the skills their pupils have already acquired and need stretching/embedding. In terms of monitoring the implementation of design and technology, I shall work closely with all year groups to plan and resource our projects, ensuring our projects meet the needs of our pupils and the curriculum. I shall collect examples of student work and perform book scrutiny and observations twice a year across all key stages. I shall also celebrate the subject by allowing one child a term to be picked as the ‘Designer of the Term’, to receive a certificate and share their work. This will help raise the profile of the subject (for all stake holders) and help other children see what they too can produce.
Pupils should leave Monks Abbey with a love for design! They will have a deepened understanding of the design process used to design most things they use. They will understand how market research, design briefs and criteria are employed by designers across the globe, as well as many mediums (IT, sketches, cross-sectional diagrams etc.), in order to build and design products. They will be able to apply their understanding of materials and tools/equipment, and choose these based on their functional and aesthetic properties. They will be excellent self and peer evaluators, including being able to apply these evaluations to improving their designs and products to make them even better. They will be able to use mechanical and electrical systems within their products, with confidence and accuracy. Children will understand how to construct a balanced, healthy meal using a variety of techniques and ingredients, including those in season.