DT
“Design and technology should be the subject where mathematical brainboxes and science whizzkids turn their bright ideas into useful products.” James Dyson
Design and Technology is a practical and valuable subject. It enables children to make an active contribution to creativity, culture, wealth and well-being, both of themselves and their community. It teaches children how to take risks and so become more resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable. Without a good knowledge and understanding of Design and Technology, our pupils would not have the creativity or ingenuity to meet the unknown challenges of the future. We want our children to ask questions, to try different ideas when something doesn’t work as intended and to be adaptable to new approaches.
At Tunbury, our curriculum is built around projects, with the idea of responding to a problem or need. The projects link to the topics for each year group to add relevance and engagement. However, the design technology skills and processes are taught discretely. We believe that focusing our design technology lessons on a problem is important as this mirrors design in the real world, with children showing an understanding of the target audience for their product, as well as being able to evaluate the effectiveness of their product against a specific purpose.
In our Design and Technology curriculum, children build their skills progressively in six strands, gaining a wide experience of design fields including textiles, structures, mechanisms, electrical systems, computing, cooking and nutrition. Our curriculum builds each year, with skills being revisited and developed upon as children progress. In all our projects, we ensure each stage of the design process is fully explored, starting with understanding the ‘audience’ or ‘purpose’ of the product and involving exploring, planning, market research, communicating, making, modelling, reviewing and evaluating.
Pupil voice - what do Tunbury learners think about DT?
Y4 pupil: "I love that your work is unique – they have the same structure but they are all different.”
Y6 pupil: “DT is important as it teaches you to plan and think things through.”
Y6 pupil: “In DT you get to solve problems like in maths. In maths, you give answers and in DT, you get solutions.”
Tunbury DT Curriculum Overview and DT Curriculum Progression
Please view our curriculum documentation to see how we have chosen to teach DT at Tunbury Primary School.
