The Forest Academy
Curriculum » Design Technology
Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject: a subject that encourages children to learn to think and intervene creatively to solve problems both as individuals and members of a team. As children journey through school, our Design and Technology curriculum is taught in all year groups through one strand per term over a two year cycle::
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Textiles
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Food Technology
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Mechanical Systems
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Structures
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Electrical Systems
Key skills and key knowledge for Design Technology have been mapped across the school to ensure progression between year groups. Our Design and Technology curriculum provides children with opportunities to research, represent their ideas, explore and investigate, develop their ideas, make a product and evaluate their work. Design and Technology lessons are also taught as a block so that children’s learning is focused throughout each unit of work.
Design Technology incorporates many traditional skills (model making, drawing and sketching, problem solving, food preparation, observation, discussion and evaluation), putting them together in an approach which encourages the children to become designers and inventors. The children are taught how to use tools and materials safely and economically. Throughout their time in school, pupils will have many opportunities to develop their ability to prepare food products, to sew and make products using fabric and to learn how materials fit together to create strong structures and allow movement.
Through a variety of creative and practical activities, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making. The children design and create products that consider function, purpose and the user and which are relevant to a range of sectors (for example, the home, school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment). Through the study of Design and Technology they combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues, as well as functions and industrial practices. This allows them to reflect on and evaluate present and past design and technology, its uses and its impacts.