St Martin de Porres 
Design & Technology
Intent
At St. Martin de Porres we aim to embrace the National Curriculum in providing a high quality Design & Technology education which engages, motivates and challenges our pupils. Design and Technology is an inspiring and practical subject, requiring creativity, resourcefulness, and imagination. We aim to ensure that all children develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world. It is our intent that children will be able to research and design innovatively, to solve real life, relevant problems for a consumer. They will apply subject specific knowledge and make links to other curriculum areas in order to become designers and makers, working safely and ethically with a range of tools and materials. Children will be able to critically evaluate their product against their original design criteria and refine their work accordingly. Through the Design & Technology curriculum, children should be inspired by engineers, designers, chefs and architects to enable them to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems and food products with a real-life purpose.
Implementation
Our Design and Technology curriculum is designed by identifying the key skills, knowledge and understanding required by the National Curriculum, which is then planned to ensure that the skills are taught sequentially across the key stages and that new skills build on and develop the skills taught in previous year groups.
Although taught discreetly, we link Design and Technology to other units of work and draw upon knowledge from a range of other subjects to enhance teaching and learning. Lessons are taught as a block of work within a term so that children’s learning is focused throughout. Pupils will work as individuals and as members of a team within their Design and Technology lessons. They will design and make a range of products and a good quality finish will be expected in all activities appropriate to the age and ability of the child. Learning is assessed through the analysis of the pupil’s ability to evaluate, design, make and improve their own work.
Curriculum Overview
In Design & Technology at our school, children are taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed in order to design, make and evaluate, through creative and practical activities. Food, cooking and nutrition is a huge focus across the school and children are given lots of opportunities to learn crucial life skills, growing their own produce and preparing and making healthy dishes from our wonderful school garden. In reception, children learn the appropriate skills to make healthy muffins and fruit kebabs. Cooking techniques are developed throughout the school, for example when baking Christmas biscuits in year 2 to making dough in year 3 to support the teaching of The Stone age. These skills are established further when cooking pizzas in year 4. Children learn about seasonality in year 1 and food and farming in year 6 and also through our annual harvest festival. All children are taught the importance of healthy eating, looking at the Eat well plate and making healthy choices at playtime and lunchtime. Food safety and hygiene is also a fundamental part of their learning.
Children are provided with design criteria and generate ideas through discussion, drawing multiple designs and annotations through to exploded diagrams, prototypes and the use of ICT. In key stage 1, children design and make both a swing and a moving vehicle. They use a range of tools to perform practical tasks including cutting, joining and finishing whilst exploring mechanisms such as wheels and axels. This is developed further in key stage two and in year 4, children are introduced to mechanical systems such as levers and cams when designing and making moving toys and even further in year 5 when creating a fairground ride. Electrical systems are also introduced in year 5 when the children are given the opportunity to make electrical buggies which extends to a computer programmable product in year 6.
Children can select from and use a wide variety of materials including construction materials. In reception, children design and make religious buildings using recycled/reused materials. Year two build a bug hotel and in year 6, the children make Anderson shelters to coincide with their learning of World War 2. In Year 5, children learn about structures by building a model of a Viking ship when studying Vikings and Anglo Saxons in Britain. Children in year 3 shape and manipulate clay in order to make their own Canopic jar when learning about Ancient Egypt. In Key Stage 1, understanding of structures is enriched through a weekly lunchtime Construction club.
Textiles skills are explored in Year 2 when children design and make a puppet in order to retell a story to a younger pupil. Children are given the opportunity to learn to sew using a needle and thread. A variety of materials are joined to the puppets by using a low melt glue gun (this is a safe tool used across the school). Textile skills are built on in year 3 when children design and make a purse using a variety of fabrics. Extra-curricular clubs that take place at lunchtime and after school, also provide opportunities to learn how to cross stitch, create cards, design and make jewellery and bake.
When studying Design & Technology, children explore and evaluate a range of existing products and evaluate their own ideas and products against their design criteria. Furthermore, each year group look at a different individual who have helped shape the world to ensure children understand the immense importance of design and technology in both history and everyday life.
We engage parents and families through homework on the Great Fire of London and the Solar System, through work in the school garden and during parent workshops.
Impact
Our Design and Technology curriculum enables and encourages our children to become creative, critical and imaginative thinkers. Through Design & Technology our children learn to take risks, become resourceful, innovative and enterprising individuals. Children learn to be passionate and excited by the designing and making of products including working with, preparing and tasting food. Learning about health, nutrition and food preparation is a life skill that will continue with them long after finishing primary school. The children are able to identify key events and individuals in design and technology that have helped shape the world. They will have an understanding of the cross curricular elements within the subject and the importance of skills learnt in other areas of the curriculum and how they aid the design and make process, as well as how these techniques and skills will aid them in future life and learning.