Design and Technology

                             Design Technology – Westhaven School

My name is Miss Sargent and I work in St Anne (Stanley).  I absolutely love working in this school. The children and staff are all amazing and I love seeing their smiles every day.

I have been teaching in Year 1 since starting at St Anne (Stanley) and love this age group. I have previously worked in Nursery and Reception in different schools and from my experience I know how important it is to have exciting lessons so that the children learn new things every single day.

I am responsible for leading Design and Technology in our school. Design and Technology is an interesting subject because it allows children to design and make new products for a purpose. Our world is forever evolving and at St Anne (Stanley) CE School we want to prepare our children to participate successfully in tomorrow’s rapidly changing technologies by encouraging them to become creative, imaginative problem solvers through real life and relevant problems, working individually and as part of a team. We want the children to take risks through planning, designing and making in order to become resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens who will be able to reflect on, learn from and evaluate past and present design technology in order to understand its impact on daily life and the wider world and we do this through our Design and Technology lessons and teaching.

We use a scheme called Projects on a Page for our Design and Technology. This ensures that every child from Year 1 to Year 6 is taught discrete lessons, half termly, using the objectives from the Programmes of Study as outlined in the National Curriculum in England (DFE 2013). In Nursery and Reception, we use the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals, and Expressive Arts and Design to provide opportunities to demonstrate their learning of Design and Technology through topic work.

In St Anne (Stanley), Design and Technology is taught in blocked units of work encompassing the main features of Mechanisms, Textiles, Structures, Electrics and Food and Nutrition. However, we have recently realised that our children need to learn how to cook and bake using healthy ingredients so we have enlisted the support of Classroom Kitchen to deliver our cooking lessons through online sessions. The children really enjoy these sessions and are now using the skills they have learnt at home. In order to support the parents in their understanding of healthy living, we have provided courses such as cooking on a budget.

Our biggest achievement in getting children to bake has been with our yearly ‘Bake Off’ in support of the charity Children in Need. Lots of families get involved and every class bakes something that can be sold to make money for the charity. Some of the cakes have been amazing and they are all delicious!

What is Design and Technology and why do we need it?

Click the link to find out. What is D&T – and why do we need it?

Vision

St Anne (Stanley) CE School is a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment where Design and Technology prepares children to participate successfully in tomorrow’s rapidly changing technologies by encouraging them to become creative, imaginative problem solvers through real life and relevant problems, working individually and as part of a team. We want the children to take risks through planning, designing and making in order to become resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens who will be able to reflect on, learn from and evaluate past and present design technology in order to understand its impact on daily life and the wider world.

Intent

The Design and Technology Curriculum at St Anne (Stanley) is an inspiring, inclusive and practical subject which is underpinned by our school values. We want all of our children to engage in a curriculum that supports the development of the creative, technical and practical capabilities of each child through solving real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts including food and nutrition. Our children are encouraged to become innovators and risk-takers through learning the key skills, knowledge and understanding that are an integral feature of our high-quality Design and Technology curriculum so that they are able to contribute to the creativity, culture, wealth and well-being of the nation and participate successfully in an increasingly technological world.

Implementation

At St Anne (Stanley), we provide a high-quality Design and Technology curriculum that embraces individual needs and physical and mental well-being in a safe, enriched learning environment. We understand that a rich and varied environment that supports children’s language learning through Design and Technology and beyond is necessary so we ensure that subject specific vocabulary is displayed in the classroom and knowledge organisers are provided to support children to work independently. 

In KS1 and KS2, we follow the Projects on a Page scheme of work, which is supported by videos and projects from Kapow Primary. This allows our teachers to be creative with their lessons, whilst still ensuring all aspects of the National Curriculum are covered.  Our Design and Technology curriculum is taught half termly and alternates with Art through discrete, meaningful lessons where children learn the skills and knowledge through the phases of designing, making and evaluating their own relevant and real-life products.  Each year group will participate in 3 Design and Technology projects over the year, where children focus on a separate set of skills in each lesson. 

Children start their Design and Technology learning journey in EYFS and are encouraged to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding of Design and Technology with plenty of meaningful opportunities through expressive arts and design.

Expressive Arts and Design:

Birth to 3 year olds will: Explore different materials, using all their senses to investigate them. Manipulate and play with different materials. Use their imagination as they consider what they can do with different materials.

3-4 year olds will: Explore different materials freely, to develop their ideas about how to use them and what to make. Develop their own ideas and then decide which materials to use to express them. Join different materials and explore different textures. Create closed shapes with continuous lines and begin to use these shapes to represent objects. Draw with increasing complexity and detail, such as representing a face with a circle and including details.

In Reception: Create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills.

As children progress through the school, they are presented with opportunities to develop these skills and challenge themselves, as similar topics are revisited and built upon.

At St (Anne)Stanley, we embrace the opportunities that our local area provides with links to our Design and Technology Curriculum such as visits to our local shops and local enterprises. We encourage a healthy lifestyle within our school and have promoted regular food and nutrition sessions provided by Classroom Kitchen Online in conjunction with our teaching staff. Through these sessions, both children and parents/carers have learnt new skills and benefited from Parent Workshops about cooking on a budget which has supported the whole family in their everyday lives and beyond.

Impact

To guarantee that progress is made for all children in Design and Technology, the staff at St Anne (Stanley) ensure that we follow the teaching sequence for Design and Technology supported by Projects on a Page. We are able to embed the knowledge required through the teaching sequence and provide relevant and investigative lessons and experiences.  We consistently build on the children’s prior learning to deepen their understanding and build confidence in their own ability to be resourceful, innovative and enterprising individuals. Every child is given the opportunity to consolidate their skills and understanding by creating their final product for each topic.

At St Anne (Stanley) the purpose of monitoring and evaluation activities is to raise the overall quality of teaching and levels of pupil attainment. The quality of teaching and learning throughout the school is consistently monitored through book scrutiny, lesson observations, learning walks and pupil voice.

 

Curriculum overview

Progression of skills in Design and Technology

Design-and-Technology-National-Curriculum-overview

Design and Technology Policy

Load More...

View older tweets #stannestanleyDT

 

EYFS

They have been making their own sandwiches and then enjoyed them for their snack.

 

Lauren (the Health Promotion Worker from Stoneycroft Children’s Centre) came to make a healthy snack with the children. The children chopped and sliced a selection of soft fruit then added to plain yoghurt. A healthy treat made and enjoyed by all the children. What concentration too whilst being so careful.

 

Reception went shopping and bought some potatoes. Then they came back to school and washed, peeled, chopped and mashed the potatoes to make mash potato. Most importantly they took some home to enjoy Image

Year 1 

Year 1 started their  topic on  Mechanisms: wheels and axles by exploring how they work. They had a go at making the wheels turn but realised they needed to use an axle and axle holder to ensure the wheels turned. They also explored broken wheels and ways they could fix them.

Then they designed their vehicles for Santa. They knew we had to add wheels, axles and an axle holder . After designing, they made their vehicles. They had to work out what worked and they tested their vehicles to check that the wheels moved.

‘Look at our finished vehicles for Santa. We decorated them and then evaluated them to see if they matched our original designs.’

Year 1’s next topic is Mechanisms: Sliders and Levers. They started by exploring books that had sliders or levers in them and looked at how the mechanism made the picture move. They used their English topic about Fairy Tales to design and make their own moving picture.

Image

In their Food and Nutrition topic, Year 1 found out about different types of fruit and vegetable and how they need to eat healthy food. They started by cutting the fruit and vegetables using a claw and bridge method and tasted them to see which one they liked or disliked.

 

They also had a special treat in their cooking sessions because Father Christmas asked Mr Deveney to make a treat for him for Christmas Eve, so they made mince pies for him. They used their baking skills such as  measuring, weighing, mixing and kneading.

 

Year 2

For Year 2’s Food and Nutrition topic, they have been learning about regional dishes. They made Scouse, which is our regional dish. They found out where our local produce comes from and used this to make their  favourite meal.  It was delicious! 

In their Classroom Cookery session, they made a traffic light salad. Mr Deveney helped them to prepare a traffic light salad and taught them the correct ways to cut different fruit and vegetables. The best part was when they got to eat the salad! They looked and tasted amazing!

Year 3

Year 3’s  first topic on Food and Nutrition is a healthy and varied diet. They have been exploring and investigating different types of bread so that they can make our own bread. Then they made their bread into tasty, healthy sandwiches. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr McShane from Kensington Bread Company also came into school to teach the children to make bread and they got the chance to taste it. 

Year 3 have previously worked with Mr Deveney from Classroom Kitchen  to learn about food and nutrition, as well as creating some healthy and tasty dishes. In their first session, they created Moroccan couscous, whilst in their second session, they made and cooked their own ‘home made’ fish-fingers, always using fresh and  healthy ingredients. The children have thoroughly enjoyed these fantastic, fun and very educational sessions, expertly delivered by Mr Deveney. Year Three have developed lots of new knowledge and skills, many of them trying foods they have never tried before.

Year 4

Year 4 have  been exploring Electrical systems: Simple circuits and switches this half term. They used their knowledge and understanding of electrical systems to make a torch

Image

Image

Image

Year 4 have previously made a healthy Coleslaw  in cooking, which some of them had never tried before! They used lots of skills including chopping, grating and slicing and mixed our vegetables with Greek yogurt to make it healthy.

Can you explain why we added lemon to it?

Did you like it? Have you made it at home yet?

Year 5

Year 5 have been exploring and investigating frame structures. They started out investigating different structures in and around school.

After the investigation, they  had a go at designing and making their own frame structures using different materials and joining techniques to make their frame structure stronger.

Classroom Kitchen were in Year 5. The class always look forward to the visit from Mr. Deveney. They are showing increased confidence and proficiency in their cooking skills and becoming more aware of nutrition. The repertoire of delicious, healthy meals continues to grow. A recipe sheet has been given to pupils for them to recreate the dish at home… Get cooking!

They have been celebrating culture and seasonality in their cooking sessions and made Jambalaya. They  wanted to see if they could make this on a budget so sourced the cheapest ingredients that would still taste delicious. Peeling,dicing, chopping, slicing, frying, mixing,boiling and eating!  Lots of skills have been learnt in this session.

Image

Year 6 have also previously made focaccia bread in their cooking sessions. It tasted amazing!

 

STEM Club(Science,Technology,Engineering, Math

Our Year 1 children have been involved in an after school STEM Club. They designed and built different structures with a variety of materials. 

Week 1: used different construction sets to design and build bridges.

Week 2: used spaghetti and blue tack to create a bridge. This was really hard and they had to figure out a way to make the spaghetti stronger.

Week 3: used paper to create different structures. They learnt how to make the paper stronger by folding it, joining it, rolling it and making concertinas.

Week 4: they had a choice of two types of catapult to make and had a go at making one. It was a bit tricky but they persevered and eventually made one.

After school cooking club

The children have been able to continue their cooking lessons after school. They made some delicious things to take home and try.

Parents Workshop:- A recipe for budget cooking

A workshop was held  for parents alongside Classroom Kitchen. The parents were introduced to cooking a nutritious meal for as little as 35p a portion! They had the opportunity to prepare a few different budget meals on the day as well as take away a free recipe guide. It was a very successful day and the parents and children enjoyed it so much that they went home and cooked some of the meals that night.