Design and Technology at Mount Pleasant CE VC Junior School

Intent: 

At Mount Pleasant CE VC Junior School, we believe that a love of Design and Technology, that is inclusive to all, is a fundamental part of every child’s education and plays an important part in the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Our Design and Technology lessons will inspire the children to be both innovative and creative thinkers who will appreciate the product design cycle through ideation, creation and evaluation. Through the formation of safe learning environments, children will be provided with opportunities  to to develop and extend their pre-existing skills to ensure they build in confidence and resilience whilst engaging with a wide range of tools, materials and components. 

We will aim to develop children’s awareness of the impact of design and technology on our lives and encourage children to become resourceful, enterprising citizens who will have the skills to contribute to future design advancements. 

Implementation: 

With the support of Kapow, our Design and Technology curriculum will be taught through four main stages of the design process: research, design, make and evaluate. Each stage of the design process is underpinned by technical knowledge. As children’s learning is sequenced through a spiral curriculum, key aspects of knowledge and skills will be revisited again and again with increasing complexity allowing pupils to build upon their previous learning. 

Three half-term units will be explored across both phases, encouraging our children to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts. To do this, they will explore working with a range of materials, tools and components to achieve a purposeful end product. Cooking and Nutrition units will focus on specific principles, crucial life skills and techniques within food; including origin, diet and seasonality whilst also encouraging a love of cooking now and in the future.

To develop children’s knowledge, understanding and skills, our children will be provided with design briefs and scenarios that require consideration of the needs of others. Throughout their time at Mount Pleasant CE VC Junior School, children will complete Design and Technology projects within six key areas: 

  • Cooking and nutrition
  • Mechanisms/Mechanical systems
  • Structures
  • Textiles 
  • Electrical Systems
  • Digital World

Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent, paired and group work including practical hand-ons, computer-based and inventive tasks. This variety ensures lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles. Differentiation for a variety of learning styles is addressed to ensure each lesson can be accessed by all of our children and opportunities to stretch their learning is provided when required. Knowledge organisers for each project support children in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary and when necessary are added to, to deepen their understanding.

Impact: 

By the time children leave Mount Pleasant CE VC Junior School, they will leave the school equipped with a range of knowledge and skills to enable them to flourish in their next stages of their education and to be innovative, creative, independent and resourceful individuals who contribute to future design advancements.  

The expected impact of our design and technology curriculum is that children will: 

  • Understand the functional and aesthetic properties of a range of materials and resources. 
  • Understand how to use and combine tools to carry out different processes for shaping, decorating and manufacturing products. 
  • Build and apply a repertoire of skills, knowledge and understanding to produce high quality, innovative outcomes including models, prototypes and products to fulfil the needs of users, clients and scenarios. 
  • Understand and apply principles of healthy eating, diets and recipes - including key processes, food groups and cooking equipment. 
  • Have appreciation for key individuals, inventions and events in history and of today that impact our world. 
  • Recognitise where our decisions can impact the wider world in terms of community, social and environmental issues. 
  • Self-evaluate and reflect on learning at different stages and identify areas to improve.

Documentation: 

Click to Download Design Technology Long Term Plan + Sticky Knowledge.docx [pdf 356KB] Click to Download
Click to Download Design Technology - Progression Document - Kapow.docx [pdf 434KB] Click to Download

Additional Resources: 

Add resources here if required.