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Northbourne ce
Primary School

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Design Technology

Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. Design and Technology encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team. It requires children to be active learners with the confidence to ‘have a go,’ and the resilience to persist with a project when challenges occur.

The National Curriculum for Design and Technology aims to ensure that all pupils:


At Northbourne CEP School we acknowledge that Design Technology is an important part of our broad and balanced curriculum. It plays a significant role within our Forest School provision. The intention of our DT curriculum is for children to build and apply knowledge, understanding and skills to design products for a specific purpose. We intend to make products using developed technical and practical skills and develop an understanding of the importance of making on-going changes and improvements during the making stage. Children are encouraged to use problem solving skills to solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts as individuals and part of a team. Children will develop an understanding of critiquing, evaluating and testing ideas and products. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other subject areas such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art thereby enabling pupils to notice connections and patterns in their learning.

The teaching of DT follows the design, make and evaluate cycle, with technical knowledge and relevant vocabulary shared at each stage. The design process is always linked to real life, relevant contexts to give meaning to the learning. When making their products, the children are given opportunities to experience a range of tools and materials to choose from. When evaluating, the children are taught to evaluate their own products against the initial design criteria to see how well it has met the needs and wants of the intended user and to identify any changes that could be made. Where appropriate, children will use design sheets or booklets to plan, record, assess and evaluate their work.
