Design and Technology
OUR DT Curriculum
Downloads: Scroll through the PDFs below to find out more about our DT Curriculum.
DT – Theoretical and practical knowledge
Our Goals
At Olveston CEVC Primary School, we value DT as a significant part of the curriculum to stimulate creativity and extend a range of skills. Pupils will use a range of tools to experience woodwork, cooking, design and construction. Through our DT curriculum, pupils should be inspired by chefs, engineers and architects and create a range of mechanisms, textiles and food products with a purpose to real life. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically to evaluate and test the effectiveness of products. There should be clear evidence of progression through the year groups in the form of drawing, photographs and models. We believe that helping children develop their skills as close to real life as possible makes learning in DT valuable and enriching.
We believe our DT curriculum is ambitious and exciting!
The Olveston DT Curriculum has three over-arching aims:
- Children develop their theoretical knowledge – this can be of significant periods in history, historical figures and historical events.
- Children develop practical knowledge – how the children apply their theoretical knowledge in hands on experiences.
- Children have the disciplinary knowledge of a designer – they develop their skills in assessing, designing, making and evaluating.
What does this look like in the long term?
- When designing, children understand the context they are working in, think about who their products will be for and decide what tasks they will perform. They have opportunities to generate, develop, model and communicate ideas in a variety of ways, including spoken language, drawings, templates, mock-ups, prototypes and pattern pieces.
- When making, children select from a range of tools and equipment, explaining their choices. They also have opportunities to choose the materials and components they will use, thinking about their working characteristics. They follow procedures for safety and hygiene and develop a repertoire of practical skills and techniques, working with increasing accuracy.
- When evaluating, children make increasingly sophisticated judgements about their own ideas and products against design criteria. They consider the views of others in order to improve their work. They also investigate and evaluate existing products using a variety of questioning techniques and, in KS2, learn about important inventors and their inventions.
- Children develop their technical knowledge as a body of knowledge and understanding that is specific to design and technology that needs to be developed and then applied when children are designing, making and evaluating products.
- When cooking, children to learn about where food comes from, how food is grown, reared or caught and the effect of seasonality on the availability of food. They also learn about the principles of healthy eating and how to prepare and cook dishes safely and hygienically using a range of techniques. Cooking and nutrition is taught alongside designing and making within a D&T food project.
