To see the Mill Lane Primary School Design and Technology Curriculum please click the link below:
Intent
At Mill Lane Primary School we want to inspire our children to aspire and to exercise their creativity and passion through exciting designing and making opportunities. Our high-quality design and technology curriculum and planned cross-curricular links provide a real purpose to our children’s creative projects. We aim to teach the children to combine their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding in order to design and make an end product. Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product, developing a key skill which they need throughout their life. The design and technology curriculum will provide all children with the opportunity to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, equipping them with the values to live well in our society and prepare for the challenges of the modern 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.
Design and technology at Mill Lane allows children to apply the knowledge and skills learned in other subjects, particularly mathematics, science and art. Every child at Mill Lane will be given the opportunity to develop their understanding the importance of nutrition and safe food preparation. This will provide them with a lifelong skill, whilst also learning about ingredients and food traditions from different cultures around the world.
Children are taught to work using the ‘Research, Design, Create, Evaluate’ cycle. While projects generally have a specific end point, emphasis is also placed on inspiring individuality into the design process at any opportunity. Pupils are offered technical explanations and demonstrations, along with subject specific vocabulary to enable them to express their thoughts and ideas. Children are made aware of the potential risks of working with different tools and materials and are shown how to manage these risks successfully to create products in a safe, hygienic way. Being an environmentally conscious school, children are encouraged to create products in a responsible way, ensuring that resources are used considerately.
Our goal is to offer a design and technology curriculum that builds on a child’s early creative experiences and gives them the tools they need to express themselves in meaningful and motivating ways. In the EYFS, this is done through Expressive Arts and Design. Our EYFS follows a child-initiated approach which allows design and technology skills to flourish throughout the different learning areas.
At Mill Lane Primary school, we aim to provide an design and technology curriculum which develops learning and results in pupils knowing more, remembering more and understanding how the knowledge and skills can be applied in their own art work.
Our goal is that children at Mill Lane Primary School are taught to strengthen their understanding of respect and empathy by examining their own and others’ work, making aesthetic judgements and participating in discussions about products and their inventors.
Children frequently have the chance to use their design and technology skills to help their learning in other subjects and are not limited to using them only in design and technology lessons. Using problem solving skills throughout the entire curriculum enables all students, regardless of ability, to apply what they have learned into practise and reinforce important concepts. It can help bring important ideas to life and give pupils useful, alternate ways to document and show their learning.
Implementation
The Mill Lane Primary School design and technology curriculum is fit for purpose and ensures full curriculum coverage. Design and technology is taught in termly blocks focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the national curriculum. The national curriculum objectives are broken down into key areas so that children can research, design, make, evaluate whilst developing their technical knowledge.
Children evaluate their own products against a design criterion, which allows them to not only celebrate their successes but also consider how to improve the products that they have designed. Each of these steps is rooted in technical knowledge and vocabulary. Design and technology is taught to a high standard, where each of the stages should be given equal weight. The key areas of learning for children are:
- Structures
- Mechanisms
- Textiles
- Food and Nutrition
- Electrical Systems (KS2)
Physical mechanisms, cooking methods or the merits and drawbacks of working with particular tools, materials and equipment are explored within the units to give the widest possible range of experiences for all children. The materials and media used are revisited throughout units and year groups to ensure progression of skills previously developed. Children have access to key knowledge and vocabulary in order to understand and readily apply new terminology to their work in art and across the wider curriculum.
To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in design and technology, Mill Lane have developed and implemented a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Activities in each unit build upon the prior learning of the children and develop the use of progressive vocabulary throughout. We give children of all abilities the opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding so that the children are increasingly challenged as they move through the school.
The most current documents are available at the top of this page. The curriculum map helps to show the progression planned across the whole school in terms of their theoretical, practical and disciplinary knowledge.
Impact
If you were to walk into design and technology lessons at Mill Lane, you would see:
- Clear skills being taught.
- Children using a variety of visual aids other inventors work as inspiration.
- Designing and planning time.
- A range of materials and resources used throughout the year.
- Children confident to express what has gone well in their designs and what can be improved.
- Children reflecting on their own work, evaluating its effectiveness and editing where necessary.
At Mill Lane Primary School, we are able to measure the impact that design and technology has had for all children by:
- Determining the extent to which objectives are met within each lesson and at the end of each unit.
- Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
- Images of the children’s practical learning which may include looking at photos, sketchbooks, Evidence Me, feedback or iPad work.
- Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
- Moderation staff meetings where pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
- Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.
A recent pupil voice survey found that children in our school say that they love design and technology at Mill Lane because…
“I can make things. I design them myself! I love it when I can show people what I have made.”