Design & Technology Curriculum Intent
At Aspire we value Design and Technology as an important part of our curriculum, giving our children the opportunities to develop and learnnew skills and develop products.
We aim for our curriculum to provide pupils with a real life context for learning.
Through the DT curriculum we aim to inspire pupils to be engineers, designers, chefs and architects and enable them to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles and food products with a real life purpose.
Design & Technology Curriculum Implementation
The DT curriculum at Aspire is taught in 2 discrete skills units taught over the school year. These units are taught across the whole school and adapted for the age and stage of each pupil. The content to be taught is clearly set out in knowledge organisers for each unit and includes key skills culminating in a final design and make task. The units cover a range of DT skills and cover all National Curriculum objectives over a 4 year cycle. Cooking skills are taught by Bexley cooking school with each pupil receiving a 6 week course during the school year. The importance of healthy eating is also taught within this unit.
Throughout the curriculum there are opportunities for cross curricular DT sessions practising skills and developing their enthusiasm and enjoyment for DT in other subjects. This includes: maths, computing and science.
All teaching of DT follows the design, make and evaluate cycle. Where possible, the design process is rooted in real life and relevant context to give meaning to the learning. While designing and making pupils are given a choice and a range of tools to choose freely from. At the end of each unit pupils evaluate their own products against design criteria.
Design & Technology Curriculum Impact
The impact of our DT curriculum is measured in a variety of ways: development of pupils DT skills, evidence of completed work,listening to child-led discussion,using images/videos of children’s practical learning, talking to pupils across the school about their learning,and monitoring of evidence slides throughout the year.
By teaching DT skills and knowledge at Aspire we hope children will:
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- Be confident to have a go at exploring new skills and techniques and develop skill of resilience and perseverance when designs don’t go to plan
- Develop a clear enjoyment and build confidence in DT skills that can be linked to other areas of the curriculum and real life situations.
- Understand and apply the basic principles of nutrition and learn basic cooking skills.