Design and technology Statement of Intent
Resilient Respectful Inspired Curious
Designers at Yeadon Westfield Junior School
At YWJS, each child will have the chance to design, innovate and become a resilient evaluator. They will inspire their curiosity by identifying needs and opportunities and responding to them by becoming inventors and risk-takers. Our children have opportunities to be involved in projects to make products and systems and be able to use and stretch their creative, practical and analytical skills.
Using practical and hands on experiences, our designers will look at real life situations, contexts and famous designers and inventors to be inspired in order to solve problems and create solutions in a controlled, respectful and safe environment.
They will be taught elements of:
Our designers will have had chance to create high quality prototypes, driven by detailed plans that have been reviewed, critiqued and evaluated against a specific criteria. Our designers will be encouraged to constructively criticise each design, which in turn builds their resilience and respect whilst ensuring we inspire them and build on their curiosity by giving them a wealth of skills for future development.
STRETCH AND CHALLENGE IN DT
We want children to achieve mastery of the DT curriculum by being able to plan, design and make an item, to fulfil a given criteria, in different contexts. This would require a good level of technical skill with a broad range of tools and use of innovative ways to enhance the outcome of an item. As our scheme of learning is a spiral curriculum, children revisit previous learning – skills and knowledge - and can improve over time.
Pupil comments:
Year 3:
"I enjoyed learning about levers and computers." (Lola)
"I like DT because we made these Earths in Geography and when you cut them open you could see the layers of the Earth in them." (Connie)
Year 4:
"I like DT because we get to make mechanisms and make things out of nothing." (Ameliah)
"I like DT because we get to make things and talk about mountains and things on mountains." (Chloe)
Year 5:
"I like DT because we build new things and we find out about mechanics and machines." (Zak)
"I like DT because you get to make things." (Angelee)
Year 6:
"I like DT because I get to experiment with tools and technology." (Lexie)
"I like DT because we get to be very crafty and in year 5 we got to make a Mars Rover." (Noah)
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