Design & Technology

Intent

Here at Knutton St Mary’s C of E we aim to offer a full and enriching curriculum for all students. When teaching our wider school subjects, we tailor our units and lessons to suit the needs of our individual learners, with the intent that every child is able to access the curriculum at the appropriate level, learning new knowledge and skills, allowing them to flourish and ‘let their light shine’. 

With that in mind, we believe that every child can be; an engineer, a designer, a chef, a developer, a director – the possibilities are endless, and we intend to unlock, nurture and showcase our children’s talents as they work their way through our carefully planned D&T curriculum content.

Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject for our children to engage with. It can be found in many everyday objects children use and that is why it is key for them to realise the importance and relevance of the subject. Over time, our children will gain inspiration through engineers, designers and chefs to enable them to create a range of textiles, structure, mechanisms and food products, with a real-life purpose, that is suitable to their skill level.

As in other subjects, progression is clearly mapped for each year group and we put emphasis on assessing prior knowledge and learning at the beginning of a new unit, to ensure that pupils are first and foremost equipped with the appropriate skills to access the next steps in their D&T education. Our aim is that they leave at the end of Key Stage Two with a wealth of new and transferrable skills that will further develop as they continue through the next phase of their educational journey.  Opportunity is key and our children really do deserve every chance to ‘let their light shine’.

Our D&T lessons are planned around half termly themes for each year group and are taught in conjunction with other subject areas where possible, giving the children a wider understanding and adding more purpose and context to their studies. Moreso, there is always opportunity for prior knowledge’ sessions to take place to not only assess learner’s starting points, but to ensure that consolidation of previous skills can happen before new learning takes place.  D&T project booklets are used to show research, preparation and development of ideas, clearly showing the learner’s process and progression over the unit. In using these booklets, we encourage our children to look back and reflect upon their learning week by week as they work through their project, teaching them to think creatively and critically to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team.