Design & Technology

Design and Technology 

At Alsager Highfields Community Primary School we provide a nurturing environment where every child can believe in themselves and achieve throughout the curriculum.  Design and technology is an inspiring, rigorous, and practical subject. It encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team.                

Intent

At Alsager Highfields, we encourage children to use their creativity and imagination, to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants, and values.

Children have the opportunity to complete one design and technology project per term in order to develop a wide set of practical skills throughout school. They acquire a broad range of subject knowledge and our aim wherever possible is to link other disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing, and art. The children learn how to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising, and capable citizens. Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, they develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world.

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; understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.

At Alsager Highfields we aim to provide opportunities for our children to create products for a range of purposes, developing a variety of relevant and adaptable skills and habits that are built upon as they progress through the years and are life-long. We want them to be able to apply their own ideas to create real-life solutions to needs within the current world we live in. Through this, the aim is that the children will become progressively competent and confident with communicating their designs, increasingly dexterous with the skills necessary (from cookery to sewing to construction skills etc) and increasingly proficient in evaluating their own projects and those of others.

Furthermore, our design and technology curriculum is inclusive in order for all children to achieve and develop their skills to the best of their ability with no barriers such as gender stereotypes within certain industries.

Implementation

Through a variety of creative and practical activities, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in the process of designing and making. The children design and create products that consider the function and purpose, and which are relevant to a range of sectors, such as home, school, leisure, industry, and the wider environment.

When designing and making, the children are taught to

Design

  • use research and develop design criteria to inform the design of innovative, functional, appealing products that are fit for purpose, aimed at particular individuals or groups.
  • generate, develop, model, and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches, cross-sectional diagrams, prototypes, pattern pieces and computer-aided design.

Make

  • select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks (for example, cutting, shaping, joining, and finishing, as well as chopping and slicing) accurately.
  • select from and use a wider range of materials, ingredients, and components, including construction materials, textiles, and ingredients, according to their functional properties, aesthetic qualities and, where appropriate, taste.

Evaluate

  • investigate and analyse a range of existing products.
  • evaluate their ideas and products against their own design criteria and consider the views of others to improve their work.
  • understand how key events and individuals in design and technology have helped shape the world.

Develop, Use and Apply Technical Knowledge

  • apply their understanding of how to strengthen, stiffen and reinforce more complex structures.
  • understand and use mechanical systems in their products.
  • understand and use electrical systems in their products.
  • apply their understanding of computing to program, monitor and control their products
  • understand some of the ways that food can be processed and the effect of different cooking practices (including baking and grilling).

The context for the children’s work in Design and Technology is also considered and children learn about real life structures and the purpose of specific examples, as well as developing their skills throughout the programme of study.  Design and technology lessons are taught as a block so that children’s learning is focused throughout each unit of work.

Impact

Children will:

  • be familiar with the whole design and make process, valuing the importance of each aspect.
  • build and apply their knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users and critique, evaluate, and test their ideas and products.
  • be willing to have a go, recognising that mistakes are part of the process.
  • develop and refine skills within the disciplines, including inventing, cooking, sewing etc

Children become resourceful, innovative, and capable citizens. Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, they develop their understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world.

Files to Download

Student Login

STAFF LOGIN
PARENT LOGIN
SCHOOL BLOGS