Please read on for what DT looks like at Peel Common Junior School!

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur, industrial designer, business magnate, media proprietor, and investor

At Peel Common Junior School, we aim to provide children with a DT education that is relevant in our rapidly changing world.  We want to encourage our children to become problem solvers who can work creatively on a shared project or individually. We believe that high-quality DT lessons will inspire children to think independently, innovatively and develop creative, procedural and technical understanding. Through our curriculum, we encourage children to use their creativity and imagination, to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other disciplines such as mathematics, science, history, computing and art. Children will be exposed to a wide range of media including textiles, food and woodwork; through this, children will develop their skills, vocabulary and resilience.

“Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future.” - Paola Antonelli, Italian author, editor, architect, and curator

Implementation

We have a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum that has been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups. Whilst the National Curriculum forms the foundation of our curriculum, we make sure that children learn additional skills, knowledge and understanding and enhance our curriculum as and when necessary. Children have access to key knowledge, language and meanings to understand Design Technology and to use these skills across the curriculum. In Design Technology, children are asked to solve problems and develop their learning independently. This allows the children to have more ownership over their curriculum and lead their own learning in Design Technology. English, Maths and ICT skills are taught during discrete lessons but are revisited in Design Technology so children can apply and embed the skills they have learnt in a purposeful context.