Design & Technology, Intent, Implementation and Impact
Intent
Design and Technology gives children the skills and abilities to engage positively with the designed and made world, and to harness the benefits of technology. They learn how products and systems are designed and manufactured, how to be innovative and to make creative use of a variety of resources including digital technologies, to improve the world around them.
At Lawn Primary School we encourage children to become independent, creative problem-solvers and thinkers as individuals and as part of a team - making positive changes to their quality of life. We enable them to identify needs and opportunities and to respond to them by developing a range of ideas and by making products and aesthetic, social and environmental issues, as well as functions and industrial practices. This allows them to reflect on and evaluate present and past Design and Technology, its uses and its impacts - it helps all children to become astute and informed future consumers and potential innovators.
Food technology is implemented across the curriculum with children developing an understanding of where food comes from, the importance of a varied and healthy diet and how to prepare this.
Implementation
Design and Technology is focused on throughout the school, with projects being worked on each term from year 1 to year 6. Children in the early years have free access to saws and hammers and independently use the tools with real wood and nails etc. to design and make anything they wish. This independence continues into year one but becomes more structured with clear projects for children towards the middle of the autumn Term.
At Lawn Primary, we have selected to use Kapow Primary curriculum for D.T. We feel that it accurately follows the outlined end of Key Stage attainment targets for the national curriculum. It has creative and fun units of work that have been designed around certain key areas of D.T. Mechanical systems, structures, textile and KS2 also including, electrical systems and digital world. There is clear progression of skills and knowledge within these strands and key areas across each year group.
At Lawn Primary we recognise that D.T. can be a subject with very specific content that might not have been covered in many people lives. Therefore, Kapow is very useful a setting out high-quality vocabulary that all can use, both learners and educators.
Cooking and nutrition has a separate section with a focus on specific principles skills and techniques in food, including where food comes from, diet and seasonality.
Impact
At Lawn Primary School we use a range of techniques and strategies to understand the impact of our work and how best to move forward. We constantly monitor through both formative and summative assessment strategies. Each lessons includes specific guidance for teachers to support students to achieve the learning objective. Each unit has a knowledge catcher that can be used by staff members if appropriate and unit quizzes.
We will use learning walks, book looks pupil voice and professional conversations to attain the level of retention in the key objectives and vocabulary. Further to this, as a school we have recently started to use WOW work. This is a way for Class Teachers to suggest higher levels of work that will then be recorded on Class Pages at the end of each term. It celebrates aspiration goals while allowing subject leads to see what some of the quality work is looking like in a specific year group quickly and conveniently. Furthermore, we use the school Podcast to listen to children discussing their successes and challenges in specific subject, D.T. included.
