Our vision at Norwood...

We believe that through the Design and Technology curriculum, children should:

 

* have the opportunity to explore creativity, innovation, independence and reflection

* take part in motivating projects with challenging goals that will allow all children to flourish

* develop key technical competency and vocabulary

* develop key skills, such as teamwork, resilience and resourcefulness

* have the opportunity to develop different factors that affect design conditions

 

By the end of their primary years, children will be able to independently set design criteria, research a project, evaluate and use a wide range of tools, equipment and materials and reflect on the design process and their learning journey.

The 5 key strands of D&T:

Our Design and Technology programme of study links closely with our cross curricular topic themes. The children have the opportunity to design, construct and evaluate products connected with their learning -  from vehicles to puppets to smoothies - while learning to use a range of tools and techniques. There are 5 key strands of learning: Materials and Structures, Mechanisms, Textiles, Food and Nutrition and Electrical Systems.

Materials/Structures: Children progressively learn how to measure, cut and join materials to create specific structures, following a design criteria. In KS1, the focus is on learning about ways to strengthen, stiffen their products, and by the end of KS2, children will be applying this knowledge to a wide range of more complex structures.

Mechanisms

With strong links to our Science curriculum, in our Mechanism units, children will study levers, sliders, wheels and axels - in Key Stage One - leading onto work on pulleys, gears and cams in Key Stage Two.

Textiles: In our textile units, children learn how to design items for a purpose and then measure, cut and join materials using a variety of different methods.

Food and Nutrition: Our work in food and nutrition work focusses on healthy eating and understanding where food comes from. Children will have the opportunity to learn about foods and to develop a variety of skills and techniques in order to make food and prepare dishes.

Electrical systems: Working with aspects of electrical systems is introduced in Key Stage Two, where we try to incorporate electrical circuits, including light bulbs, motors and switches into our designs.

Key Documents