Design and Technology Aims

The National Curriculum for design and technology aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • understand food and nutrition and have opportunities to learn to cook.

In meeting this aim schools without access to a teaching kitchen, nearby kitchen or mobile kitchen may have to adapt what they teach accordingly to the facilities available.

It also aims to ensure that, working in fields such as materials (including textiles), horticulture, electricals and electronics, construction, and mechanics, they:

  • develop valuable practical skills and use these safely with a range of resistant and non-resistant materials, drawing media, tools and equipment, in both 2-D and 3-D
  • design and make well-crafted products that are fit for purpose
  • develop and use a range of common practical skills, in contexts such as mechanical, diagnostic and repair tasks
  • understand and, where appropriate, use the design cycle of planning, developing prototypes, modifying, making and evaluating
  • know about good design, everyday products and use correct technical terminology
  • investigate the rich history of design and technological innovation in Britain and further afield, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, as well as current innovations.

Subject Content Key Stage 1

Pupils should explore and develop purposeful, practical skills in design and technology, taking advantage of local opportunities and the expertise of teachers.

Pupils should be taught the basic principles of balanced eating and where food comes from, and should be encouraged to develop an interest in cooking.

Through working in fields selected from those listed in the introduction (materials (including textiles), horticulture, electricals and electronics, construction, and mechanics), pupils should be taught to:

  • perform simple, useful, practical tasks (for instance, making products for a purpose using a basic range of tools and materials, and techniques such as cutting, forming and joining)
  • explore different materials, and become familiar with their properties and uses
  • communicate ideas simply, such as through drawing, jottings, modelling in 2-D and 3-D and, where appropriate, using information and communication technology to record the development of their designs
  • appreciate the need for good design by evaluating a range of design and designers.

Design and Technology

Emmaus CMAC
St Ambrose Catholic Primary School Ofsted
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