Design & Technology at Easton Primary School

Intent 

At Easton Primary School, our Design and Technology curriculum is designed to develop creative, resourceful and reflective pupils who can identify needs and opportunities, generate ideas, and design and make purposeful products. Using the Kapow Primary Design and Technology scheme as the foundation, pupils develop the knowledge, practical skills and understanding needed to engage with the design process and respond to real-life problems. 

Pupils learn that designing and making involves investigating, planning, selecting materials, developing technical skills, testing, evaluating and improving. They are encouraged to be curious, resilient and willing to adapt their ideas when something does not work as expected, making considered choices and taking pride in their outcomes. 

DT is taught either over a day and a half or through weekly sessions, depending on the unit, the practical processes involved and the professional judgement of the class teacher. This flexible approach allows learning to be organised to best support engagement, skill development, construction, testing and evaluation. 

Our intent is to: 

• Develop creativity, problem-solving, resilience and confidence as designers and makers. 

• Teach progressive designing, making and evaluating skills. 

• Enable pupils to investigate existing products and understand users, purposes and design contexts. 

• Develop practical knowledge of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems, materials, and food and nutrition, as appropriate to each unit. 

• Support pupils to select and use tools, equipment and materials safely, accurately and purposefully. 

• Encourage pupils to test, evaluate and improve products against design criteria. 

• Build technical vocabulary and the ability to explain design decisions. 

• Provide an inclusive curriculum in which all pupils can participate, achieve and develop independence. 

• Prepare pupils for the next stage of education through transferable skills such as collaboration, critical thinking and enterprise. 

Implementation 

DT is taught using the Kapow Primary Design and Technology scheme as the foundation for curriculum planning. The scheme supports a structured sequence of learning through which pupils investigate, design, make and evaluate products. Teachers use professional judgement to adapt units, resources and activities to the needs, ages and prior learning of pupils in each mixed-age class. 

Learning is organised around meaningful design contexts and purposeful outcomes. Pupils explore who a product is for, what it is intended to do and what features will make it successful. They investigate existing products, develop and communicate ideas, select materials and components, practise relevant skills, construct products and evaluate them against the design brief. 

Across the curriculum, pupils encounter a range of DT areas, including structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems, and cooking and nutrition, as appropriate to the planned units. Practical skills are explicitly modelled and practised before pupils use tools, equipment and materials independently. Safety expectations are taught and revisited. 

In mixed-age classes, teachers identify shared themes or design briefs where appropriate, while adapting the complexity of design criteria, technical knowledge, vocabulary, independence and expected outcomes. Learning revisits and builds on prior knowledge so that techniques and concepts develop over time. Pupils may work independently or collaboratively to share ideas, solve problems and refine products. The curriculum is reinforced through discussion, displays and celebration of the design process as well as finished outcomes. 

Assessment for Learning and Impact  

Assessment is primarily formative and focuses on pupils’ developing design knowledge, practical skills, technical understanding and ability to evaluate. Teachers use observation, questioning, discussion, review of design work and examination of products to identify what pupils know and can do, and where further modelling, practice or challenge is needed. 

Assessment considers the whole design process, not simply the finished product: how pupils investigate a brief, communicate ideas, select materials and tools, apply techniques, respond to problems, test their work and evaluate against the intended purpose and design criteria. Pupils are encouraged to explain decisions and identify possible improvements. 

Impact is seen through: 

• Progression in pupils’ ability to investigate, design, make and evaluate products. 

• Growing confidence, accuracy and independence when using tools, materials and practical techniques. 

• Understanding of users, purposes, design criteria and the properties of materials and components. 

• Ability to apply technical knowledge, solve problems and adapt ideas during making. 

• Increasing use of appropriate DT vocabulary to communicate ideas and explain decisions. 

• Thoughtful testing, evaluation and improvement of products. 

• Positive engagement, resilience, collaboration and pride in purposeful outcomes. 

• Evidence that pupils of different ages and needs can access the curriculum and make progress from their starting points. 

Assessment information is used to inform future teaching, identify gaps in knowledge or skills, and support curriculum review. Teachers consider pupils’ work over time rather than relying on a single finished piece. Each term, teachers will report progress of attainment towards national curriculum objectives into the school’s assessment system, Sonar. After each data collection, data analysis will take place on two levels which include whole school and class specific. The teachers will receive gap analysis information identifying areas of need for the school and in addition to this, teachers will carry out their own gap analysis for their classes which will inform them of their next teaching objectives for the cohort. This data analysis and feedback is undertaken termly. 

At the end of the academic year, teachers will make an informed judgment on the children’s attainment based on the data collected throughout the year on the Sonar system to identify if pupils are below, at or above age related expectations.