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Design & Technology (DT)

"Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition". - Freeman Thomas (automobile designer 1957-present)

Subject Leader: Geraldine Summers

Link Governor: Andrew Rankin

At Christ Church, DT lessons are exciting and inspirational. Children are given real problems to solve and are encouraged to create individual solutions so that all responses are unique and give valid answers to a need. They are taught in three strands - mechanical, textiles and food tech with every year group covering each across the year. 

DT is taught in a cyclical manner with each series of lessons beginning with children being presented with a client who has a problem, and specific criteria which must be fulfilled when solving it. They then explore existing products to use them as a springboard for creating their own solutions, before selecting the best one in order to create a prototype. On completion, the prototype is tested and assessed against the criteria before refining and retesting as needed.

Our topics also touch upon connected issues in the wider world such as sustainability and, in doing so, work towards creating innovative products that support our belief in looking after the world God created.

What Children Learn

We ensure that our DT lessons are accessible to all children, regardless of academic ability and use multi-sensory approaches to learning - some of our favourites are:

  • Creating earthquake proof buildings in Y4
  • Making a sustainable snack for a Viking raider in Y5 
  • Re-purposing clothing into new items in Y6

DT is taught by the class teacher throughout our school and is planned using the National Curriculum. Much thought is given when planning DT lessons to ensure children are supported with vocabulary, concepts and implementation to enable each learner to achieve the lesson objective. Challenge, to stretch minds further, can also be found in how the lessons are structured and differentiated. 

Our learning is organised to ensure that knowledge and skills build on previous study, allowing for regular recall of prior learning.  These schemes of work are linked to the year group’s current overarching topic or singular curriculum subject. A variety of DT skills will be taught within each series of lessons which, just like the knowledge and understanding of design and inclusion of client requirements, are built up over time so that children are familiar with them all as they make their journey through the school. They include designing, planning, developing and communicating ideas as well as specific skills relating to food, textiles, mechanics, electricals, sheet materials and evaluation. 

Nursery

The children in the Nursery have free access to a range of resources in order to create. The children are taught to join materials together using glue or tape. The children take part in regular cooking experiences, including learning to spread butter and jam to make a tasty jam sandwich.

Reception

In Reception, the children learn to design and create using a range of materials. The children are given motivational problems to solve and are allowed to explore a range of mediums and materials in order to solve the problem. For example, during their exploration of the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears the children were given the problem of Baby Bear needing a new chair. They were given the chance to explore materials, colours and textures in order to create their own individually unique chair for Baby Bear. The children also take part in regular cooking experiences, including making Gruffalo Crumble! 

Year 1

  • Autumn The children start their food tech journey by answering the question ‘How can we keep cool on a hot day?’ They explore drinks, lollies and smoothies as inspiration and create their own solution. 
  • Spring The children work with textiles to create something in which an Easter egg can be safely carried.
  • Summer The children work directly with clients - their peers in Nursery - to create a moving book with the theme of ‘People Who Help Us’ to support their understanding of this mechanics topic.

Year 2

  • Autumn The children learn about shaping textiles through their new topic of making a fabric book cover to protect a special book.
  • Spring The food tech unit this term is a challenge to create a dough based snack for Bob to take with him to the moon to share with his alien friends. The children will taste a variety of dough products and create their own based on the client’s -Bob - preferences. 
  • Summer Moving vehicles is the theme for this term in mechanics. The children will create a vehicle which will transport each class’ mascot safely, over a designated distance.

Year 3

  • Autumn The children explore textiles in depth as they consider how to make a suitable soft toy for Kirby the dog. They will take his preferences into account as well as safety  and durability of the finished product. 
  • Spring The mechanical topic this term is linked to literacy where children need to construct something to allow a book character - Ug - character to cross the river.
  • Summer The children have great fun sampling, making and refining cheese in the food tech unit for Farmer Brooks.  He runs a dairy farm and finds himself with a glut of milk which he needs to turn into something saleable for his farm shop. 

Year 4

  • Autumn Y4 begin their DT sessions by creating their own chocolates for a company which wants to launch a new Christmas range in food tech.
  • Spring Linking to their geography topic, the children examine the structure of buildings around the world and then create an earthquake proof building in their mechanics unit.
  • Summer Carnival comes to CCNM as the children create Mardi Gras face coverings for clients who are taking part in the parade in this textiles unit.

Year 5

  • Autumn Y5 begins a history linked project whereby the children create a poppet toy for a Tudor child in textiles.
  • Spring  The spring term kicks off with Food tech and another history link as the children explore different types of bread and flavour it only with ingredients which would have been available to Vikings. 
  • Summer For their final project, Y5 explore the fascinating world of paper engineering to create pop-up books which illustrate their All About Me poems which they write as part of their English units of work.

Year 6

  • Autumn In their final year at Christ Church, the children begin Y6 with textiles as they think about the impact on the environment of textile manufacturing and this, along with a link to WW2 and the ‘Make do and mend’ mentality leads to repurposing old clothing into new items. 
  • Spring Linking to the Victorians, the children explore cams in the mechanics unit and create an eye-catching display for a Victorian shop owner. 
  • Summer In their final food tech unit, the children link to the Mayans, which they study in history, and create tasty chocolate-inclusive produce to sell in order to raise money for leavers activities.