Design Technology
The Intent, Implementation and Impact of Design Technology at Victoria School
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
- Steve Jobs
Intent
Victoria School intent for the teaching of Design and Technology is to support both a depth of understanding and skill development, whilst nurturing the pupil’s creativity, individuality and imagination. Our Design and Technology curriculum develops pupils’ skills and knowledge in design, structures, mechanisms, electrical control and a range of materials including food.
The Design and Technology curriculum at Victoria School enables pupils to use their prior knowledge, skills and imagination to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of different contexts.
Our teachers deliver Design and Technology education in order to ensure all pupils become resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens that can confidently participate in an increasingly technological world.
The teaching of Design and Technology at Victoria School ensures that all pupils, from EYFS to Year 6:
· Develop the creative, technical and practical expertise need to perform everyday tasks
· Build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users
· Critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others
· Understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook
Implementation
The Design and Technology curriculum at Victoria School is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards clearly defined end points.
Design and Technology embeds the school’s culture of learning how to learn. It is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject, requiring creativity, resourcefulness, and imagination. Pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a
variety of contexts. Pupils learn to take risks, be reflective, innovative, enterprising and resilient.
The teaching of Design and Technology across the school follows the EYFS and National Curriculum guidance. We use the Learning Challenge Curriculum progression grids in conjunction with the KAPOW program of study. It is taught in all year groups from 2-11
Each key area follows the four elements of the design process (design, make and evaluate) and has a particular theme and focus from the technical knowledge or cooking and nutrition section of the curriculum.
The Kapow Primary scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key areas revisited again and again with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revisit and build on their previous learning.
Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including practical hands-on, computer-based and inventive tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles.
Lessons can be adapted to ensure they can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary.
In Key Stage 2, every class has a unit of work based on programming robots. This culminates in a fun and engaging competition in which the robots ‘dance’ against each other following a pre-programmed set of instructions designed by the pupils.
Phunky Foods: Food technology is implemented across the school, with a designated pupil kitchen in Key Stage 2. Pupils develop an understanding of where food comes from, the importance of a varied and healthy diet and how to prepare this.
As a school 20 miles from Britain’s biggest nuclear waste site and therefore with STEM at the backbone of its community, we are dedicated to the teaching and delivery of a high quality Design and Technology curriculum through well-resourced projects and experiences.
The school offers a range of extra-curricular activities to support learning in this area, such as Cookery Club for Year 2 pupils and Robot Club for KS2 pupils. The Robot Club prepares a group of pupils who go on to take part in the National Robot League Competition.
Victoria School is also in partnership with the Energy Coast University Technology College which aims to combine local expertise in teaching and learning in technology, facilitating CPD, and providing school-to-school support.
Impact
The impact is for all pupils to develop confidence in taking risks and recognise the power of their imagination to make a product they can see, touch and even taste.
Design and Technology provides pupils with the necessary skills and knowledge to become young designers and instils a sense of achievement and pride. It develops an array of skills year on year and is a learning platform for other subjects.
Assessment of pupils' learning in Design and Technology is an ongoing monitoring of pupils’ understanding, knowledge and skills by the class teacher, throughout lessons.
This assessment is then used to inform the appropriate next steps required for the pupils to ensure they make the expected progress towards end of year standards.
