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Statement of Intent
You can create anything if you can imagine it! We want children to know that if they can imagine it, they can make it. Because of this, we have chosen to use Maestro Curriculum projects which have been tailored and adapted to our school's needs.
The Design and Technology curriculum is designed to inspire our children to research, plan, design, evaluate and build new and better products. We aim to build children’s skills as they progress through the school so that they can develop creative, practical and technical expertise in the subject.
Children will develop skills in designing high quality prototypes, understand how to make them through a large variety of technical skills and learn to critique and evaluate their ideas and products effectively.
Implementation
The design and technology projects are well sequenced to provide a coherent subject scheme that develops children’s designing, planning, making and evaluating skills. Each project is based around a design and technology subject focus of structures, mechanisms, cooking and nutrition or textiles.
All the projects follow a structure where children are introduced to key concepts and build up knowledge and skills over time, using a more comprehensive range of equipment and building, cutting, joining, finishing and cooking techniques as they progress through school. All projects contain focused, practical tasks in the Develop stage to help children gain the knowledge and skills needed to complete their Innovate tasks independently.
Throughout Key Stages 1 and Lower Key Stage 2, children design, make, test and evaluate their products to match specific design criteria and ensure they fit their purpose. Throughout the projects, children are taught to work hygienically and safely.
Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and 2)
In the autumn term of Year 1, children begin to learn about structures in the project Shade and Shelter before designing and making a shelter. In the spring term project Taxi!, they learn the term ‘mechanism’ and assemble and test wheels and axles. In the summer term, children begin to learn about food sources in the project Chop, Slice and Mash and use simple preparation techniques to create a supermarket sandwich.
In the autumn term of Year 2, children learn more about food in the project Remarkable Recipes, where they find out about food sources, follow recipes and learn simple cooking techniques. In the spring term project Beach Hut, children develop their knowledge of structures further, learning to cut, join and strengthen wood for the first time. In the summer term, children begin to develop their understanding of textiles in Cut, Stitch and Join. They learn to sew a simple running stitch, use pattern pieces and add simple embellishments. They also continue to learn about mechanisms in the project Push and Pull by using sliders, levers and linkages in products.
Lower Key Stage 2 (Year 3 and 4)
In the autumn term of Year 3, children continue to learn about food, understanding the concept of a balanced diet and making healthy meals in the project Cook Well, Eatwell. In the spring term project Making it Move, children extend their understanding of mechanisms by exploring cams and using joining and finishing techniques to make automaton toys. In the summer term project Greenhouse, they continue to develop their knowledge of structures, using triangles and braces for strength. They design and build a greenhouse, using their understanding of opacity and transparency and the needs of plants from science learning to inform their design. In the autumn term of Year 4, children continue to develop their understanding of food in the project Fresh Food, Good Food. They learn about food safety and preservation technologies before designing and making packaging for a healthy snack. During the spring term project Functional and Fancy Fabrics, children continue to explore textiles, learning about the work of William Morris before designing, embellishing and finishing a fabric sample. In the summer term project Tomb Builders, they build on their knowledge of mechanisms, learning about six simple machines and using their knowledge to create a lifting or moving device prototype. They also explore and use electrical systems and IT monitoring and control in the science project Electrical Circuits and Conductors for the first time.
Impact
By the end of Year 2, all children will:
- enjoy the process of designing and making through a variety of creative and practical activities
- create products for a wide variety of topic related contexts
- learn to explore and evaluate a wide variety of products while assessing their own ideas and products against a design criteria
By the end of Year 4, all children will be able to:
- Use research to develop their own specific design criteria
- Generate and communicate their ideas
- Use a wide range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks
- Understand how design and evaluation has shaped the world
- Evaluate their own ideas and consider improvements to others work.
Teachers ensure there is progression in knowledge and skills by using the Maestro Curriculum skills progression document.