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Design & Technology

Design and Technology gives children the skills and abilities to engage positively with the designed and made world, and to harness the benefits of technology.  We aim to develop aspirational, creative, and technical designers, who are confident with their knowledge and understanding of the ever-changing technological world; and are passionate and able to make a creative difference.  They learn how products and systems are designed and manufactured, how to be innovative and to make creative use of a variety of resources including digital technologies, to improve the world around them.

Our Design and Technology curriculum ensures children have the confidence to thrive in their learning through the substantive and disciplinary knowledge, where practical and immersive experiences work hand in hand with the rich knowledge taught to them. Learning is tactile, skill enhancing and rich with opportunities to see design and products used and in the wider world around them with distinct links made between the classroom learning. All pupils’ design technology curriculum will link to the disciplines in technical knowledge of building strong structures, understanding mechanisms, electrical systems, computer programming, textiles and food and nutrition, through the iterative process of research, design, test, improve, make, and evaluate. Through the iterative design phases, pupils will explore tools and their uses, and develop the creative, technical and practical expertise confidently and participate successfully in everyday tasks and progressively critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products.

The Design and Technology curriculum journey at Woodstock CE Primary School is broken down into small steps, with clear learning objects and progression of skills and knowledge, building on prior learning and links to other areas of the curriculum, especially science, maths, geography, history, and art. Where possible the wider skills of reading, writing and maths are developed within this subject area.  Children explore different designers throughout their units and will research and explore the products, mechanisms and structures that fall into these. Each unit is reflective of the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the diverse and technological climate, building for the future. The progression of units through each phase in school have been carefully to ensure that children have every opportunity to work practically and enable them to grow skill sets that will set them up for the next phase of their learning and later life. Both the substantive and disciplinary knowledge is intertwined to build diverse and complex design and technology schemas for our pupils.

We encourage children to become independent, creative problem-solvers and thinkers as individuals and as part of a team - making positive changes to their quality of life. We enable them to identify needs and opportunities and to respond to them by developing a range of ideas and by making products and systems. Through the study of Design and Technology, children combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues, as well as functions and industrial practices. This allows them to reflect on and evaluate present and past Design and Technology, its uses and its impacts – it helps all children to become astute and informed future consumers and potential innovators.

As for other subjects within our curriculum, we organise STEAM Aspiration Assemblies and workshops for children across the school lead by experts in the STEAM workforce.  This has had a hugely positive impact on children’s understanding of possible career pathways within the science world that they could aspire to do or be.

Design and Technology is taught in all year groups through at least one project per term, including food technology. Projects are cross-curricular, linking to the overall termly theme to provide context and purpose.  Children are helped to develop the skills that enable them to think creatively and imaginatively to design, make and evaluate products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts. Food technology is implemented across the curriculum with children developing an understanding of where food comes from, the importance of a varied and healthy diet and how to prepare this.  Design and Technology is taught half-termly alternating with Art and Design.


Assessment in Design & Technology: Assessment is ongoing and informs future teaching building a picture of the child’s attainment and progress over time. There are also ‘check-in’ points throughout, and at the end of each unit against the objectives being taught. This gives teachers the information that they need to build a holistic picture of each individual child and enables them to plan further support and opportunities for retrieval; direct teaching and/or adaptation in future units. The subject leader monitors pupil outcomes to identify trends and patterns that inform future curriculum alterations and CPD opportunities.