Design & Technology

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Matthew 7:24

Just as the wise builder chose to build his house on solid foundations, so a well-lived, successful life requires solid foundations. Through our curriculum, we aim to give our children the knowledge and skills – the foundations - they need to become fulfilled, successful, loving adults in their world.

Intent

At Netheravon All Saints, we strive to make children work practically to solve real and relevant problems. We want them to work both individually and as part of a team to achieve success in a variety of contexts. We recognise that Design and Technology is a great pathway to helping children to become resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens. Therefore, our curriculum allows for children to learn to take risks through the process of identifying a problem, designing a solution, making a product and evaluating its success critically. Design and Technology will allow children to build on their subject knowledge and use knowledge and skills from other curriculum areas such as Mathematics, Science and Computing.

Implementation

Developing knowledge and building on skills is essential in our Design and Technology curriculum. Our curriculum, based on the Kapow scheme of learning, has been carefully designed to ensure that there is a suitable range of contexts for children to work in, including textiles, construction, cooking and nutrition. We believe it is important for all children to experience and learn skills, which they may not naturally encounter in their immediate, rural environment. Where possible, as part of the research process we will explore the village and the designs within in which help with everyday life.

Each class will explicitly learn Design and Technology in two blocks a year. As children move through the school they will build on knowledge and skills acquired in the previous block of that context. They will use key vocabulary over and over to build familiarity and understanding, as well as expanding their vocabulary with each unit. Children will in every context build an understanding of the design process; research -design – make – evaluate. It is important to us that our curriculum also provides opportunities for children to see how the knowledge and skills they learn can apply to different contexts in life, including at home, at school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry, and the wider environment.

Impact

Through high quality first teaching in DT, learners will leave Netheravon All Saints with an understanding of how to approach problem-solving and an appreciation of the processes involved in this. They will have developed their own sense of determination and built a resilience to take risks and apply what they know to find solutions to real and relevant problems. Children will be able to discuss the skills they have learnt and explain in what context these skills can be used.

Reviewed January 2024