Intent

At Cedar Park, we want to prepare our children for the future and value the importance of STEAM

education. It is vital that our children understand the world around them including how things work, are designed and are manufactured. Our aim is to develop problem-solving children who are imaginative designers and confident creators.

Implementation

The Design and Technology curriculum is designed as a spiral to ensure that key concepts and areas are revisited, built-upon and consolidated.  

The key areas of Design and Technology that underpin our curriculum are: 

• Electrical Systems  
• Food 
• Mechanisms  
• Structures 
• Textiles 

At Cedar Park, our curriculum is based upon the “Projects on a Page” which were created by the Design and Technology Association, of which we are affiliated.  These “Projects on a Page” are utilised by teachers to create short-term planning and act as an instant CPD in terms of subject knowledge, progression, vocabulary and challenge. We acknowledge the explore, design, make and evaluate cycle within our lessons to ensure that our children experience all elements of the Design and Technology curriculum. Each unit begins through exploring current solutions to a problem and evaluating their advantages and disadvantages. Children will then design multiple, unique solutions either as an individual or as part of a group. They will then be able to create prototypes using a range of materials before testing them against the design brief. The evaluation stage is an important yet often overlooked element of the design cycle and offers our children an opportunity to celebrate and evaluate the success of their design and offer changes that they may want to make against the design criteria and feedback that they have been given.

 We value children developing the skills taught through the DT curriculum and therefore ensure that classroom adults guide and support but do not complete the curriculum skills, for example, sawing, measuring and joining.  

Design and Technology is currently taught in subject days- allowing for in-depth exploration, design, making and evaluating and means that our children can become immersed in their learning. We also understand that by consolidating all unit learning into subject days that there is an opportunity for children to “forget,” and therefore DT knowledge is built into check-ins and high 5s across the academic year.  

Our children also benefit from a dedicated space to undertake the DT curriculum which allows for our children to be able to showcase their products and be able to prepare food. 

Impact

Children at Cedar Park enjoy their Design and Technology lessons and can evaluate and confidently discuss their products. They will also see the value in researching existing products and the process of designing and creating their own products. Children will be able to apply their problem-solving skills across the curriculum and to real-world scenarios.  

Design Technology for children with SEND

It is important that all children can access the Design and Technology curriculum. Therefore, teachers anticipate potential barriers and account for these within their planning. This can vary from the way in which children record their ideas and designs to the ingredients available during taste testing.  

Allergies, Intolerances and Diet Restrictions

Cedar Park supports all children with food allergies, intolerances and diet restrictions. Therefore, lessons within the food strand of Design and Technology may be adapted to include ingredients to cater to these needs. Where there is an allergy, these ingredients will be removed from the lesson. We also ensure that surfaces are cleaned and disinfected thoroughly before and after lessons and have dedicated sets of equipment for those with severe allergies to prevent cross-contamination.  

Useful Documents & Links