DT

Design Technology (DT)

DT should provide children with a real life context for learning. At Repton Manor Primary School, we want to allow children to aspire to be more thorough, creating opportunities for them in the wider world. Through the DT curriculum, children should be inspired by engineers, designers, chefs and architects to enable them to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems and food products with a real life purpose.

Our vision for DT at Repton Manor Primary School

Design and Technology prepares children to take part in the development of tomorrow’s rapidly changing world. Creative thinking encourages children to make positive changes to their quality of life. DT encourages children to become autonomous and creative problem-solvers, both as individuals and as part of a team. It enables them to identify needs and opportunities and to respond by developing ideas and eventually making products and systems. Through the study of Design and Technology our children combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues, as well as functions and industrial practices. This allows them to reflect on, and to evaluate, present and past Design and Technology, its uses and its impacts. Design and Technology helps all children to become discriminating and informed consumers and potential innovators. All children will have the opportunity to undertake high quality Design and Technology throughout their time at Repton Manor Primary School.

Our aims:

At Repton Manor Primary School we aim:

• To maintain and develop the confidence and ability for all children to solve technological problems.
• To help develop the social skills necessary to work as a team, as well as the ability to work independently when the situation demands.
• To provide a skills developing approach, focusing on the three key elements of Materials, mechanisms and Safety by incorporating: 
  
  • Focused practical tasks,
  • Product evaluation and investigation,
  • Processes of designing and making.
• To stimulate curiosity, imagination, creativity and develop the ability to operate effectively in a technological world.

How do we teach DT?

Repton Manor Primary School uses a variety of teaching and learning styles in Design and Technology lessons. The principal aim is to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in Design and Technology. Teachers ensure that the children apply their knowledge and understanding when developing ideas, planning and making products and then evaluating them. We do this through a mixture of whole-class teaching and individual/group activities. Within lessons, we give children the opportunity both to work on their own and to collaborate with others, listening to other children’s ideas and treating these with respect. Children critically evaluate existing products, their own work and that of others. They have the opportunity to use a wide range of materials and resources, including Computing.

In our DT Courtyard, our children also have the amazing opportunity to develop their skills with machines such as:

• Disc Sander
• Scroll
• Band saw
• Pillar drill

And power tools such as:

• Circular saw
• Jigsaw
• Belt sander
• Orbital sander
• Pottery Wheel

In all classes there are children of differing ability. We recognise this fact and provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this through a range of strategies:

• Setting common tasks that are open-ended and can have a variety of results;
• Setting children in mixed ability groups in which each child has an assigned role that enables them to participate with confidence;
• Setting tasks of increasing difficulty which allow children to demonstrate deeper learning and to complete extension challenges:
• Providing a range of challenges through the provision of different resources;
• Using additional adults to support the work of individual children or small groups;
• Using targeted and specific questioning to clarify and extend learning and understanding. 

For more information about Design and Technology at Repton Manor Primary School, please contact our Design and Technology Leader, Melody Boatfield.

Curriculum Group: The Sciences

Our Vision:

We aim to build curiosity about our children’s place in the world, how it works and inspire them to look to the future with excitement and the ability to take risks and problem solve.

Through The Sciences curriculum we:

• Give opportunities to interconnect our knowledge, explore and ask why.
• Build strong foundations in subject knowledge.
• Build on successes and failures to find solutions.