Design Technology Curriculum Intent
1. Our curriculum will represent, value and celebrate the diverse society in which we live
Within our design technology curriculum, we celebrate designers from a range of backgrounds and ethnicities. We seek relevant opportunities for our pupils to meet design briefs that reflect real world problems, creating projects that allow for research of different places and cultures to support purposeful designs.
2 All children will develop into confident, articulate communicators.
Our Design Technology curriculum promotes language acquisition through giving our children opportunities to make high-quality products through collaboration, discussion and swapping of ideas, and working together to overcome challenges. We intend for them to acquire and technical vocabulary (Tier 3) related to the techniques and processes they learn about.
3. All children will be challenged.
The curriculum is rooted in children constantly challenging themselves to aim for higher-quality outcomes, and supports them to regularly reflect on and make amendments to their work during the planning and making phases. We aim to provide starting points which pose problems for the children to solve.
4. The topic and content of our Curriculum will be varied, immersive and engaging.
We aim to make topics engaging by ensuring there is variety in the projects the children complete across any year. Furthermore, we seek to link learning to real-life situations, and ensure that it supports children’s wider learning across the curriculum wherever possible, drawing in learning in Science, Mathematics and Computing in particular.
5. All children will use their creativity.
Opportunities for every child to be creative are provided through encouraging the children to individualise and personalize what they make, to follow their own ideas and to be inspired by those of famous current and past designers. We aim to build children’s self-esteem and enjoyment of the subject through allowing them to use their creativity in Design Technology lessons.
6. All children will become happy, empathetic and confident citizens.
Our Design Technology curriculum contributes to the children’s personal development through promoting resilience and reflectiveness. We also aim to promote healthy lifestyle choices and nutritional awareness through the ‘Food’ elements of the curriculum, which form part of the children’s learning in each year group throughout the school.
How is Design Technology taught at Henry Cavendish?
Whole School Overview and Progression of Skills
We constantly review our curriculum in order for it to be relevant and of interest to the children, providing them with the knowledge and skills they need for the next stages of their lives throughout and after primary school. The progression of knowledge and skills the children need to learn have been carefully sequenced, and the summary of their learning journey in Design Technology is below or click the link to enlarge.