Our intentions in Design & Technology are for children to:

• Dare children to challenge themselves to try new skills and techniques

• Encourage resilience when finding D&T challenging

• Follow an enquiry, stimulating creativity through a thoughtful design process. 

• Empower children to be ambitious, trying new techniques and making products which are functional with a purpose.  

• Motivate children to work successfully independently as well as collaboratively

It is our aim that children are given the knowledge, understanding and skills in order that our children become confident designers and can apply this to their projects. Knowledge and skills are taught progressively to ensure that all children make progress in this subject. Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product.

D&T allows children to apply their knowledge and skills learnt in other subjects, in particularly Maths, Science and Art.

Whenever children are designing and making products the following will be applied;

• User – children should have a clear idea of who they are designing and making products for, considering their needs, wants, interests or preferences. The user could be themselves, an imaginary character, another person, client, consumer or a specific target audience.

• Purpose – children should know what the products they design and make are for. Each product should perform a clearly defined task that can be evaluated in use.

• Functionality – children should design and make products that function in some way to be successful. Products often combine aesthetic qualities with functional characteristics. In D&T, it is insufficient for children to design and make products which are purely aesthetic.

• Design Decisions – when designing and making, children need opportunities to make informed decisions such as selecting materials, components and techniques and deciding what form the products will take, how they will work, what task they will perform and who they are for.

• Innovation – when designing and making, children need some scope to be original with their thinking. Projects that encourage innovation lead to a range of design ideas and products being developed, characterised by engaging, open-ended starting points for children's learning.

• Authenticity – children should design and make products that are believable, real and meaningful to themselves i.e. not replicas or reproductions or models which do not provide opportunities for children to make design decisions with clear users and purposes in mind.