INTENT

At Peter Gladwin, we feel it is vital to nurture creativity and innovation through design. We aim to foster children’s natural curiosity in learning about the designed and made world and how things work. We are ambitious for all learners and strive to give them the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.

Our approach to design & technology (DT) ensures National Curriculum 2013 coverage and progression is woven into termly topics. Through the design and making process children learn to work safely, confidently and competently with a variety of tools and materials, with the chance to evaluate their work. As a STEAM school (science, technology, engineering, art & maths) there are opportunities throughout the year to bring together all our pupils’ design skills with associated disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art.

Children at PGS understand links between their learning and real life, understanding how their developing knowledge and skills can be applied today, beyond school and in to adult life. As a Rights Respecting School, children will learn from, and be inspired by, innovators globally and learn to problem-solve in the pursuit of a fairer and safer world for all.

IMPLEMENTATION

At Peter Gladwin our motto is ‘Dream, Believe, and Achieve’.

DT is taught through projects and special experiences where children have the opportunity to work through the ‘design, make and evaluate’ process. We are ambitious and aim to support all of our learners to create products with a high-quality finish.  Through this process children will develop their technical knowledge and the vocabulary to support their articulation of this understanding.

Within class, the children are encouraged to develop their key and subject-specific vocabulary throughout the design and make process. Special events and exhibitions give children the chance to share their work and explain and justify their learning process, applying the technical vocabulary accurately, using their oracy skills.  

Children use topic-based and subject-based ‘knowledge organisers’ designed to support learning across the curriculum. These summaries of key skills and knowledge are shared with the children, referred to throughout the topic and used as a means of assessment. Each term, home learning grids include a DT-based task, providing children with additional opportunities to develop their DT skills outside of school.

IMPACT

Our Design & Technology curriculum ensures that children leave Peter Gladwin:

• confident in the subject skills and then able to apply them in other areas of the curriculum.
• with a bank of skills that they have built as they have progressed through the school. They will be able to demonstrate these when using tools or skills in other areas of the curriculum and in opportunities beyond school.
• as designers who have developed skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood, recognising the important roles that Design & Technology play in all of our lives and the positive impact that innovations can have for the developing world.
• As reflective and constructive when assessing their own work and the work of others.