Menu
Home Page

Design and technology at YWJS

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:

  • Design
  • Making
  • Evaluation
  • Innovation

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.  

 

DT Long Term Plan 2024-26

Design and Technology Curriculum Policy

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)

Autumn Term 2026 - Year 6G - Mars Rover

Still image for this video
We made and tested our own Mars rovers.

Autumn Term 2025 - Year 5 - Building a Martian Rover

Still image for this video
We constructed and tested working Martian rovers. We didn't test them on Mars!
Don't forget you can use the Pause button if you want to examine a rover in detail.

Autumn Term 2025 - Year 6 Malham - Making Greek Food

Still image for this video
As part of our History topic we made (and ate) some Greek food.

Autumn Term 2025 - Year 6 Grassington - Making Greek Food

Still image for this video
As part of our study of the ancient Greeks we made (and ate) a variety of Greek foods.

Autumn Term - Year 5 Making Greek Food

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Top