St James's Approach:

Design and Technology at St. James’s offers our children the opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of designing and making functional products.

► We aim to expose children to a range of products that they can study to broaden their understanding of how the world works, and nurture creativity and innovation through design. 

It is important that children are enabled to think analytically about products, their own and other people’s, to reinforce their understanding of the designed and made world in which we live in.

► At St. James’s we want to nurture children’s enthusiasm and creativity. The new Design and Technology learning space provides an opportunity for children to take their learning outside of the classroom.

• Our children are presented with real life problems in which they must solve by given opportunities to discuss their likes and dislikes.
• They look at real life inventors and how they have changed our world.
• They are continuously asked to question the aspects of familiar products.
• They learn how things work; producing their own products based on their research, including: items with cam shafts, mechanical moving monsters, cookery, vehicles, puppets, shoes, up-cycling and re-cycling.

It is our aim to expose children to the 6 key principles of Design and Technology by embedding these principles within lessons and making children aware of the factors that enable them to create purposeful products. We have embedded the National Curriculum’s objectives within our school’s Design and Technology principles.

The key principles underpinning our Design and Food Technology are:

• D and T is about designing, making and evaluating something, for somebody that has some purpose.
• D and T is about establishing the requirements of a design brief and developing success criteria for a product by thinking about the user of the product.
• It’s about identifying different products in the local environment and thinking about the problem and purpose of the product, and how this can be improved.
• It’s about developing children’s understanding of different tools and techniques and any safety implications that they may have by making independent design decisions.
• Thinking about innovation through testing and evaluating different resources, techniques and products and gaining knowledge about their own work and the work of others.

• D and T allows children to think about the function of their products by spotting successful and not so successful features of their products.
• Children explore the authenticity of their products by thinking about their product and if it is being used for what it was designed for. This may involve looking at changes that need to be made to a product and improving it.
• In addition, Food Technology is about developing an understanding of hygiene during food preparation and the nutritional implications within a design brief.

Curriculum

How is D&T Assessed?

Concept Cards

Each child has a ‘Concept Card’ in the front of their Topic Book. The key concepts covered relate exactly to our Progression of Knowledge and Skills documents for each year group. When a Concept is not achieved, the teacher will highlight the concept. Review tasks and teacher support are put in place to address any concepts that have not been achieved.

Progression of Skills and Knowledge

Our Progression of Skills and Knowledge documents inform our planning. The National Curriculum objectives are listed in each term and broken down into progressive steps. The objectives are mapped out for progression across the year. In D&T lessons, these objectives are broken down into microscopic steps, reflecting our mastery approach. We ensure that all of our children are secure on a step before moving onto another step.