St. Oswald's C of E Primary Academy

Intent: 

At St Oswald’s we want our children to have an immersive and practical experience of Design and Technology enabling them to build their creativity and develop a sense of personal choice and opinion. Children will develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world. We aim to guide our children to make informed decisions and to develop confidence and resilience with their choices. Children will develop perseverance skills; knowing and understanding that things can go wrong but these can also be fixed, altered or mended for a better end result. Rome wasn’t built in day! 

Design and Technology is a creative subject where research and planning are the key components leading to a quality end result. Children will develop these skills on their journey through school starting in early years exploring materials and making choices and developing onto thinking about the people who will use the product and its functionality.  

Implementation:  

At St Oswald’s we pride ourselves on having an immersive curriculum, in which subjects and topics are taught ‘in fusion’ rather than as stand alone abstract subjects. In this manner, Design and Technology is taught throughout school as a part of a wider unit and is linked to other subjects. This enables staff to bring design and technology to life, giving the subject a real purpose. Children use D and T to plan and make products for a specific character or a specific purpose. This is always linked to the other subjects they are learning whether this be different time periods in history or different parts of the world. 

To ensure clarity and consistency across the school, each year group has a long term plan and a detailed medium term plan for the year, detailing linking books and suggestions for provision.  Skills and knowledge for the subject are clearly set out. This is essentially Design and Technology on a sheet.   

Teachers will follow a clear sequence when teaching Design and Technology to ensure that children are develop the skills required by product designers in the real world rather than simply building products which are out of context and not fit for purpose.  

Sequence of teaching for Design and Technology: 

There will be a small exception to this sequence for the children in year 1 as, these children will mainly consider designing products for their own personal use as this is what children at this age will be able to understand and a relate to. Making their experience of D&T purposeful and age appropriate.  

Impact: 

Through the teaching of Design and Technology, children will be able to articulate why they have designed specific products and who they have designed them for (year 2 upwards). They will also be able to explain how these products will function and their purpose, detailing the design choices they have made and why they felt this final design was the best option for their product. Children will be able to place themselves in the shoes of real designers sharing what works and why, as well as explaining how products will appeal to consumers.