The DT curriculum at Wimbledon Chase enables children to develop their creative and innovative skills as they make meaningful and purposeful projects in real-life context. We aim for our children to become confident designers. As their skill progression allows, they tackle challenging but achievable projects that enable them to use cross-curricular knowledge. Teachers bring the learning to life during activities such as the cooking, mechanics, construction and textiles lessons are relevant, practical and engaging.
We recognise the importance of analysing a range of existing products and learning about their designers. This adds a level of curiosity and engagement to the learning and it is an essential part of understanding the impact of design on the world as well. We provide our pupils with a variety of resources so they have the freedom and choice to make their own design decisions. We encourage children to adapt their designs and enjoy the journey of creating a design, not just the end product. Children are encouraged to think about sustainability issues in order to understand the positive and negative impact that the design and technology industry has on the world.
How we teach DT at Wimbledon Chase Primary School
During DT lessons, we focus on real-life skills such as problem solving, creativity, teamwork and independence at each stage of their project. Children will get the chance to:
Research previous products and their creators to see how the design works and how the design can be replicated.
Design a product by making informed decisions and recording ideas, adapting ideas where necessary.
Make a functional product based on their design, test it and ensure that it is functional.
Evaluate their product against the success criteria and think about the strengths and weaknesses of their design.