DT Intent

Our intention is that when children leave Cowbit St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, they will do so with the knowledge and understanding of how things work and the ability to think creatively. We aim to develop in our children the skills involved in creating products and the ability to evaluate critically to ensure that they are ambitious in the design, creation, and evaluation of their own work within a real life, meaningful context. With inspiration from engineers, designers, chefs and architects, our curriculum ensures that children understand the importance of market research, of careful designing and prototyping and the ongoing cycle of improvement and development.

Our DT curriculum is a fundamental part of school life and ensures the progressive development of knowledge and skills in line with the National Curriculum. Each class will study DT for three terms of the year, ensuring balanced and broad coverage of the five main areas of DT: electrical systems, mechanisms and mechanical systems, textiles, structures and food and nutrition. At our school, we choose to place a specific focus on pupils’ development of food and nutrition so that all children leaving our setting feel confident in preparing simple meals and able to eventually develop a fundamental, lifelong skill.

All teaching of DT is based upon real life contexts, ensuring that the learning is meaningful to our children, and will be rooted in technical knowledge and vocabulary. Design and Technology lessons are taught weekly. Our teaching and learning approach allows all children to work practically and share ideas through discussion, planning, drawing and prototype production, which will develop children’s oracy, vocabulary and understanding of how the world works. The unit of food is taught within each class to ensure all pupils have a strong understanding of the importance of having a healthy and varied diet. Through the promotion of eating healthily and using locally sourced and grown ingredients, children will be able to create a wide range of dishes that benefit their health whilst also exploring a range of dishes and ingredients that will broaden their understanding of cultures around the world.

All DT teaching and learning will follow the ‘design, make, evaluate’ process, with equal weighting given to each part of the process, therefore providing children with the opportunities to develop and extend their skills, establish an ability to think critically, show strength when faced with challenges, whilst also allowing them to express their individual interests and creativity. Our children will have the opportunity to explore their skills individually or with their peers using teamwork to share and enhance their knowledge and understanding whilst showing respect for each other’s ideas and suggestions.

At Cowbit St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, children in the Early Years are giving the opportunities to investigate how things work through a range of practical activities such as junk modelling, use of construction play, model building (both indoors and outdoors) and exploring healthy foods. They will work creatively, developing and refining their ideas, drawing upon knowledge links from previous experiences or other areas of learning. Throughout their time in Reception, pupils will work with a range of materials and tools whilst working collaboratively with their peers, expressing and communicating their design and the making processes used. All of these skills will prepare them for learning journey throughout their time at our school by igniting curious, inventive and practical learners.