Design Technology

STATEMENT OF INTENT

At Barlborough Primary School, our DT curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 & 2 and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. These documents stipulate the expectations which inform the intent of our curriculum, ensuring a high ambition for all.

Statements from the National Curriculum for D&T and from the ‘expressive arts and design’ educational programme of the EYFS have been broken down and sequenced into strands and year groups to ensure progression of knowledge.

This knowledge is mapped on to a whole school long-term plan and sequenced onto a D&T subject map. Links are made across year groups and subjects through deliberate and diverse content choices such as: A trip to Bolsover Castle, when learning about History of the local area, is the theme for constructing and fixing moveable parts on a castle. This knowledge of moveable parts is transferred to design and make a topic inspired receptacle for Steve Backshall and his Pole to Pole expeditions. Children will make wheels and axels in KS1 to make a topic inspired snow buggy. This knowledge of how wheels and axels work and how to construct them is transferred in LKS2 when a Roman Catapult is made using axles and wheels within the mechanism.

Each D&T statement is broken down into year specific knowledge with key vocabulary. These are used to support the creation of learning sequences and to identify ‘sticky knowledge’ – the most important knowledge children need to remember for the next stage.

The D&T year specific knowledge progression documents are used by teachers to create learning sequences and objectives. These are plotted on a discrete medium-term plan.