At Roselands Primary School, children receive a design and technology curriculum which allows them to exercise their creativity through designing and making. The children are taught to combine new skills with knowledge and understanding, in order to design and make a product.  Skills are taught progressively to ensure that all children are able to learn and practise, in order to develop as they move through the school. Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product.  This is a key skill which is integral throughout their life.  The Roselands values of Resilience, Independence, Collaboration and Respect underpin the DT curriculum.  Opportunities to learn through these values are embraced and they form the bedrock of children’s learning.  Both Collaboration and Independence are fundamental aspects of the DT curriculum.  Children are given varied opportunities to trial and develop their projects and self and peer evaluation helps to develop children’s resilience and respect  for their own and their peers’ work.

The D&T curriculum is taught through a two year rolling programme and is taught in blocks throughout the year, ensuring  that the children achieve depth in their learning. Teachers have identified the key knowledge and skills of each blocked topic and these are mapped across the school.  Therefore,  skills and knowledge are built upon year by year as well as project by project and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children.  Design & Technology will be taught in all year groups through at least one project per term, which includes two themes per year relating to food.  For example, in Reception the children learn to follow a recipe and bake bread for harvest time and to link with the topic and text of ‘The Little Red Hen’. At Roselands, we believe it is essential that children learn the basic life skill of cooking, to equip them in the future. Opportunities are given for children to grow their own fruits and vegetables, to enable understanding of the seasonality of ingredients and how they are grown, caught or reared.

All teaching of D&T should follow the design, make and evaluate cycle and each stage should be rooted in technical knowledge.  The design process needs to be embedded in real life relevant contexts, to give meaning to learning. Whilst making, children are given choice and a range of tools to choose freely from.  To evaluate, children need to evaluate their own products against a design criteria and each of these steps should be rooted in technical knowledge and vocabulary.  D&T should be taught to a high standard, where each of the stages should be given equal weight.

The curriculum is divided into 4 distinct areas:

• Textiles
• Cooking and nutrition
• Electrical and mechanical components
• Structures and tools

Design and Technology needs to provide children with a real life context for learning and at Roselands Primary School; we strive to create future opportunities for them in the wider world.  In EYFS and Key Stage 1, children are given a variety of opportunities to plan and build  their own projects through the use of continuous provision.  In Key Stage 1, this is through the setting of a weekly DT focussed COOL challenge, which follows on from a lesson taught the previous week.  Children are set an open-ended challenge and a wide variety of materials to choose from.  Collaboration is encouraged and children are taught to discuss and evaluate their projects.  For example, children in Year 1 and 2 were challenged with recreating one of the Paignton landmarks.  They were given a range of materials to choose from but had to justify and explain their designs and builds with a peer.  This led to open ended conversations where they were given the opportunity to explain and evaluate their ideas.

Through the DT curriculum, children are inspired by engineers, designers, chefs and architects to enable them to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems and food products with a real life purpose.  We aim to provide a range of educational visits and invite key people into school to speak about their profession.  Children in Key Stage 2 will also be researching key events and individual designers in the history of technology so that they learn about the essential contributions they have made to our nation.  We need to inspire children and help them realise the opportunities available within these real life jobs roles.