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“There are three responses to a piece of design, yes, no and wow. Wow is the one to aim for!” – Milton Glaser
“Design is where science and art meet.” – Robin Mathew
At Millbrook School, our intention is that all children are taught to develop their design and technology capabilities through combining their “Designing and Making” skills with “Knowledge and Understanding” in order to produce high quality designs and well finished products. The development of these skills is achieved through careful progression in each Key Stage and year group.
At Millbrook School, we encourage children to be open and flexible in their thinking so as to embrace new challenges and problems. We believe that design technology should provide opportunities for children to use creativity and imagination to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems, considering their own and others’ needs. We believe that making mistakes and evaluating the successes and failures of a design or product is an integral part of the design process and vital in order to overcome challenges and improve upon initial designs or final products.
At Millbrook School, children are taught to recognise and explore people’s needs and wants, develop their ideas about how these might be met and create products which satisfy those needs. There are close links with maths, science, reading and writing where design and technology contributes to these subjects and assists in the understanding and furthering of them. In the same way there are also occasions when pupils draw on knowledge and skills acquired in other subjects, for instance, history, geography and art. Children are encouraged to evaluate their successes and areas for further development at each stage of the design process and subsequently develop their critical thinking skills.
Design Technology is to be taught in all year groups through at least one topic per term. Design Technology projects are often made cross curricular where possible - linking to other subjects taught in the curriculum, often science and mathematics. In accordance with the National Curriculum, the teaching of DT follows the design, make and evaluate cycle. Each stage is rooted in technical knowledge. The design process is rooted in real life, relevant contexts to give meaning to learning. While making, children are given choice and a range of tools to choose freely from. To evaluate, children should be able to evaluate their own products against a design criterion. Each of these steps is rooted in technical knowledge and vocabulary. There should be evidence in each of these stages. The children design and create products that consider function and purpose and which are relevant to a range of sectors (for example, the home, school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment). When designing and making, the children are taught to:
Key skills and key knowledge for DT have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups. The context for the children’s work in DT is also well considered and children learn about real life structures and the purpose of specific examples, as well as developing their skills throughout the programme of study. Design and technology lessons may sometimes be taught as a block so that children’s learning is focused throughout each unit of work.
On implementation of the design technology curriculum at Millbrook the impact of the curriculum will be that: