Design & Technology

DT Curriculum

At Quest Primary School, through our D&T curriculum, we want children to be inspired by engineers, designers, chefs, and architects to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems and food products with a real-life purpose. Children combine their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding, in order to design and make a product. Design and Technology is a fun, rigorous and practical subject and it encourages children to be innovators and risk-takers, solving problems both as individuals and as members of a team.

We offer our children at Quest Primary, a broad and balanced curriculum which prepares them for life beyond primary education. Design and Technology can be found in many of the objects children use every day and is a part of children’s immediate experiences. Key skills and knowledge for DT have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups.  The context for the children’s work in Design and Technology is also well considered and children learn about real life structures and the purpose of specific examples, as well as developing their skills throughout the Programme of Study. Units are often cross-curricular, linking to other foundation subjects and topics, and drawing on disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art. Our Knowledge Organisers set out the key learning for the unit and support children in acquiring key information, technical understanding, vocabulary and awareness of a person of significance or interest in that area.

We follow the National Curriculum Programme of Study for D&T at KS1 and KS2. It is designed around five key strands which are cooking and nutrition, textiles, mechanisms, structures and electrical systems (KS2 only). All strands are taught at least every two years and the children complete two or three different units each year.

At Quest Primary, the children’s Design & Technology journey begins in Nursery and Reception following the Expressive Art & Design programme with the children engaging in a range of experiences to become create, construct and build with a range of materials. Learning is progressive and children are able to revisit, retrieve, build-on and extend their previous learning and skills. Vocabulary is taught explicitly to ensure that children learn both the key contextual topic vocabulary as well as technical vocabulary associated with the unit. This supports children to effectively develop skills such as evaluation, explanation and comparison.

Learning in each unit is planned around the Design – Make – Evaluate process to ensure there is a balance between developing children’s knowledge and understanding of product design, application of acquired Technical Knowledge and skills to their final outcome and also an opportunity to learn about great architects, designers, inventors, engineers and chefs. We believe that evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product, which is a key skill they can use in their adult life. We want the children to combine their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding in order to design and make a product. Children will understand that Design and Technology serves a real purpose for the world they live in today.

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Knowledge Organisers

{Coming soon}