We are designers!  

Intent 

Why is Design and Technology important for pupils at Grampound Road? 

At Grampound Road School, we value Design and Technology as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a rich, broad and balanced curriculum. Design and Technology provides children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their creativity, critical thinking and ideas. 

Design and Technology education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own designs. It should teach children how Design and Technology has both reflected and shaped our history, and how it contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. At Grampound Road we hope that Design Technology will inspire our children to be creators, designers and innovators of the future. 

Implement:

At Grampound Road the children have the opportunity to develop their skills in designing, making and evaluating their final products. The children have opportunities to work with a range of materials and apply different skills to design and make different products, including model greenhouses, bag-tags and ration bags. Teachers make links across the curriculum when teaching design and technology and children have the opportunity to make connections with their previous learning. Our design and technology curriculum is sequenced so that it builds on the children's prior knowledge. We develop skills progressively, linked directly to the national curriculum. Children record their learning in sketchbooks which they keep as they move up through the school to show their progression in skills and teachers also record photographs of the children applying their skills and include these on our digital floorbooks. 

In the Foundation Stage, design and technology is taught as an integral part of topic work and is embedded throughout the Curriculum. The objectives taught are mostly taken from the Physical Development and Expressive Arts and Design statements from ‘Development Matters in the EYFS’ and the PSED Early Learning Goals. 

In EYFS children: 

• Explore, use and refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings. 
• Return to and build on their previous learning, refining ideas and developing their ability to represent them.
• Create collaboratively sharing ideas, resources and skills.
• Develop storylines in their pretend play.

In KS1 children: 

• design products and share ideas based on design criteria, drawing and modelling
• select from and use a range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks
• select from and use a wide range of materials and components, including construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their characteristics
• explore and evaluate a range of existing products as well as their own products using design criteria
• build structures and explore and use mechanisms.

In KS2 children: 

• use research and develop design criteria to inform their designs and consider the purpose of the product they are making 
• communicate their ideas in different ways 
• select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks accurately 
• select from and use a wider range of materials and components, including construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their functional properties and aesthetic qualities
• 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

Impact: 

How does studying design and technology help pupils to achieve? 

• By the time children leave Grampound Road CE School, as well as meeting the National Curriculum requirements, we want them to have developed the skills to become critical thinkers.  

• They will be able to analyse and assess existing designs for their effectiveness and then consider ways of redesigning to improve its overall success.  

• Through DT, our children will learn to take risks, become resourceful, innovative and enterprising individuals.  

• We want children to be passionate and excited by the designing and making of products including working with, preparing and tasting food.