Subject leader: Mrs Tariq  

Intent:

At Northlands, Design and Technology lessons are creative and spark imagination as well as providing children with a clear rationale on how to plan and be evaluative, drawing upon cross-curricular skills such as maths, science and English. We aim to make the subject real, relevant and applicable to everyday life (see the photos above). We aim to ensure that pupils build upon the skills of previous lessons and previous years and become adept at applying their knowledge and skills in practical contexts. 

Implementation: 

All staff follow a clearly defined long-term plan so that skills and experiences can be built upon throughout their Northlands DT journey. We have chosen to use PlanBee as the highly practical nature of the lessons, appeals to our children and gives them relevant life skills (learning to cut vegetables) as well as allowing them to critique, evaluate and test their designs. Moreover, a number of other schools in our soft federation use it which allows for seamless sharing of resources, ideas and best practice during our DT leader days! Lessons are designed in such a way that they build upon expertise gained previously and lessons begin with a recap of previous learning. 

Pedagogical Approach:

At Northlands, we are aware that no two lessons are the same but in general, we seek to ensure that our pedagogical approach to Design and Technology includes the same key factors.

Our design and technology provision allows for children to make progress across the four key concepts;

Design

Make

Technical knowledge

Evaluate 

Because D&T is a creative subject, you can expect to see children discussing ideas and ways to improve their work. Children will then have the opportunity to put their imaginations into practice by building and creating their designs. Our D&T teaching follows a journey off plan, design, make and evaluate. We would expect to see lots of hands on learning throughout D&T which enables the children to complete memorable experiences and develop their creativity skills. Towards the end of a D&T project we would expect the children to begin to apply their knowledge to real life situations which develops their life skills.

Impact: 

Northlands pupils gain practical skills and expertise and more importantly we see them develop a passion for design. The overwhelming majority of pupils are able to design, make and evaluate relevant products using a range of tools which they then evaluate. Pupils also develop sufficient technological knowledge needed to be critical of the designs of their peers and products available on the market.