Design Technology at Bolton

Subject Lead: Bianca Cousin (Since September 2020)

Monitoring Governor: Mike Innerdale (Since September 2020)

Intent

Bolton Primary School offers a coherently planned medium term plans to help teachers ensure they have progressively covered the knowledge, understanding and skills required in the National Curriculum. Design and Technology aims to inspire children through a broad range of practical experiences to create innovative designs which solve real and relevant problems within a variety of different contexts. The iterative design process is fundamental and runs throughout the planned units. This iterative process encourages children to identify real and relevant problems, critically evaluate existing products and then take risks and innovate when designing and creating solutions to the problems. As part of the iterative process, time is built in to reflect, evaluate and improve on prototypes using design criteria throughout to support this process. Opportunities are provided for children to evaluate key events and individuals who have helped shape the world, showing the real impact of design and technology on the wider environment and helping to inspire children to become the next generation of innovators.

Implementation

Design and Technology skills and understanding are built into lessons, following an iterative process. However, this is not to say that this structure should be followed rigidly: it allows for the revision of ideas to become part of good practice and ultimately helps to build a depth to children's understanding. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our lesson plans and resources help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills, knowledge and challenge. We have designed a specific series of units for each key stage, which offer structure to support planning but can be adapted by teachers. The revision and introduction of key vocabulary is built into each lesson. This vocabulary may be added into display materials and additional resources to ensure that children are allowed opportunities to repeat and revise this knowledge. The subject lead will support other adults and teachers with the skills and knowledge that they are teaching.

Through these lessons, we intend to inspire pupils and practitioners to develop a love of Design and Technology and see how it has helped shaped the ever-evolving technological world they live in.

Impact

Bolton Primary will aim to increase the profile of Design and Technology.  Technical vocabulary will be displayed, spoken and used by all learners. Whole-school and parental engagement will be encouraged through the use of design and technology-specific home learning tasks and opportunities suggested in lessons and overviews for wider learning. We want to ensure that Design and Technology is loved by teachers and pupils across school, therefore encouraging them to want to continue building on this wealth of skills and understanding, now and in the future. Impact can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment such as success criteria grids, unit assessments (formative) and  summative assessments aimed at targeting next steps in learning.

Please see our Design and Technology at Bolton document below for more information, including our policy, progression of skills and long term plans.