Design Technology
Rationale
As Designers we ask that our children design, make, evaluate and where possible improve the products they produce. We ensure that our products are designed for a purpose or with a specific user in mind. As our children progress through school the design process is extended whereby the children are encouraged to continually evaluate and refine their working designs, eventually leading to them producing prototypes to aid in this process.
We ensure that our children have a good understanding of the core skills that they need for the future by focusing on three key elements of technology – food, textiles, materials & construction. As a school we feel that these areas will give our children valuable skills that they can use throughout their lives.
In Food we begin by teaching simple cooking skills and following a simple recipe with support, this is built on each year by increasing the children’s independence and ability to follow a recipe accurately until eventually the children are confident to adapt and refine recipes to fit a specific purpose.
In Materials & Construction we begin by teaching the children to measure, mark out, cut and join materials using simple techniques. This is extended by developing the cutting & joining techniques and encouraging the children to select the most appropriate and finally we encourage the children to refine their techniques and precision and consider how to present their work with a better finish.
In Textiles we begin by teaching the children to shape, join and decorate textiles using simple techniques. We build on this by teaching different stitching and decorating skills until the children are confident to select the most appropriate techniques for the effects they want to produce.
