At Aldryngton Primary School, we believe that children should acquire the knowledge and skills to be influential designers, makers and evaluators. DT is taught throughout the school from EYFS to Year 6. We encourage children to think carefully about designing their DT projects to enable them to construct their projects or prototypes. Their projects or prototypes lead to the children evaluating their work to enhance their design capabilities and explore designers to help influence their creativity and design knowledge.
Our DT curriculum has been designed to cover statutory and non-statutory aspects of the National Curriculum.
In Aldryngton, DT topics link to either our History or Geography driver. The teachers deliver projects that enable the students to follow the process of design, making, evaluation and technical knowledge to create purposeful and functional products.
Through the teaching of DT, children build on previous learning to develop their skills to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users. We teach how to use tools safely. When teaching products involving food, children are taught principles of nutrition and learn how to cook, which supports our science driver. For example, Middle School create pizzas following the main DT principles of design, make, and evaluate whilst considering technical knowledge and nutrition.
The teaching of DT in Foundation in EYFS framework is structured very differently from the national curriculum. Within the framework, there are seven areas of learning rather than subject areas—the Key areas for DT link to Physical Development and Expressive Arts and Design. Examples of DT in Foundation are cooking projects linked to the topic. For instance, at the start of the academic year, making healthy smoothies for our topic Marvellous Me. We also encourage the children to access junk modelling resources during child-led learning.
As a school, we conduct whole-school summative assessments where the teachers can assess each child according to the requirements of Development Matters for EYFS and the National Curriculum, which are recorded on the school Insights tracking platform.
Useful links
http://www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/
The Food a Fact of Life website provides information about food, including interactive projects and information sheets for children to help them discover more about the food they eat.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ks2-design-and-technology/zvb8hbk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ks1-design-and-technology/zfycmfr
The BBC website is a crucial resource for educational information and practical ideas to engage your child in the design process.