St.Joseph's Catholic
Primary School
"Love one another as I have loved you."
Design & Technology
Intent
At St Joseph’s, we intend for our children to use their imagination and creativity to design and make a range of products within a variety of contexts. Children will build and apply the knowledge and skills needed to design high quality products with a critical approach. They are given the opportunity to understand nutrition and how to cook.
We aim to nurture creativity and innovation of design by exploring and being critical of the world we live in. Throughout their time at St Joseph’s, children will be encouraged to take risks when designing and making their products through engaging, purposeful and vocabulary rich design and technology lessons. The children will design, construct and evaluate models according to a brief. The level of design criteria, practical skills required and the evaluation process used is aligned with the National Curriculum as the children move through school.
Implementation
The Design Technology curriculum is covered through the implementation of a yearly cycle where children explore big questions which link to a range of topic areas. As a school we follow the Cornerstones Curriculum with support from Hepp DT. Hepp DT offers specialist subject teaching which not only gives our children access to subject specialism but also provides excellent staff CPD as staff work alongside specialist. Design and technology at St Joseph’s gives children an opportunity to explore their ideas whilst developing skills and their understanding of designing and making functional products.
Using individual creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs.
Children experience a design and technology curriculum that encompasses a range of skills and builds upon that of the previous year. This is achieved through fun and engaging lessons that spark a love of design in all pupils. Ultimately, they will be proud of their achievements within design and technology.
D&T is taught regularly whilst ensuring links to current topics are paramount. Staff have the freedom to ‘block’ D&T if required, thereby completing a whole D&T project in a day or two. DT skills focus on the following model:
• Researching (including audience and purpose of the product).
• Designing
• Making (and testing)
• Evaluating
Impact
The impact of our Design Technology curriculum is that our children learn how to take risks and be critical thinkers. They will become resourceful, innovative and capable problem solvers, whilst utilising a range of communicative skills to express and present their designs. Through challenge and refining their ideas, they will embrace improvement and become more ambitious as a result. Children will deepen their understanding and independence within other subject areas as well as extending skills beyond their design and technology lessons.
Year Six Hepp DT day
In the Autumn Term our Year Six class were studying World War Two. As part of their learning they explored and investigated aircraft from the period. Working alongside Hepp DT the children researched Spitfires. They then used this research to inform their own designs.
We explored measurements, shape, product parts and markings to inform our designs.
Once we were satisfied with our designs, we began the making process. This involved selecting suitable tools, measuring carefully, trialing things and solving problems as we worked on our products.
Afterwards we evaluated our products against the design criteria. We were very proud of aeroplanes but we also thought about how we could improve them.
Year Four Hepp DT Day
As part of the Year Four learning project about invaders and settlers, they investigated, designed, made and evaluated catapults.
We followed the research and design of catapults which gave us ideas about how catapults work and how they were used by ancient armies.
After our initial research and designing we had the chance to explore suitable materials, tools and try out the mechanical aspects of a catapult.
When we'd completed our products we had a great time testing the catapults. We reflected upon what worked well, how we overcame any problems during the making process. Then we thought about any changes we could make to improve our catapults.
Our Christmas Food Technology Challenge!
At Christmas we were given the brief to research, design and make our own class Cheristmas treats. We had great fun exploring different treats. Then we learnt all about food safety regarding hygiene and reading labels carefully to find out if any ingredients could be dangerous to food allergy sufferers.
When we had decided upon our class Christmas treat we set about making them... Here are some examples of our Christmas Treats.
Year Two Chocolate Reindeer
Our Year Five children recently visited St Pius Design Technology Department to do Food and Design Technology.
As a group we explored packaging, branding and how this is a well thought out design process. It involves lots of market research and investigation. We then designed and made our own plastic for a Christmas chocolate and
we designed a Christmas cookie.
Here are some more of our awesome Design Technology Day at St Pius. You can see us exploring packaging designs, designing and making our plastic molds and creating our packages, chocolates, cookies and using the Food Technology labs.
