Design Technology

Our Intent for Design Technology

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”  Steve Jobs

At WASPS we aim to provide a Design and Technology curriculum that provides children with a real-life context for learning. We want to allow children to be critical, creative and meticulous in their approach to evaluating, planning and making a product for a purpose. 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 and to solve real-life problems.

Our teaching of Design and Technology follows the design, make and evaluate cycle. Each stage should be rooted in technical knowledge gained from looking at examples that already exist.  The design process should be rooted in real life, relevant contexts to give meaning to learning. While making, children should be taught how to use a range of tools and to develop the knowledge required to choose freely from these. To evaluate, children should be able to evaluate their own products against a design criterion. Each of these steps should be rooted in technical knowledge and high-quality vocabulary.

Through our Design and Technology curriculum children will acquire a broad range of knowledge and link these to their learning in maths, science, computing, art and engineering. They will learn how to take risks with a new plan or idea, becoming thoughtful, resourceful, innovative and capable citizens. Through their evaluation of past and present technologies, they will develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life, and recognise the essential contribution that high-quality design and technology makes to the creativity, culture, wealth and well-being of society.