At Rainford CE Primary School, pupils will grow in appreciation of the impact of design and technology on the creativity, culture and prosperity of the nation. By using their developing knowledge, drawn across a range of subjects including mathematics, science and art and design, pupils will develop their capacity to become innovative problem solvers.

Through our design technology curriculum, we encourage our pupils to develop their creativity, imagination and resilience to produce meaningful and purposeful products which take into account the needs, wants and values of their intended users. The children at Rainford CE Primary School are made aware that the best products are not made from their first design, but from a process of trial, practice and improvement.

We have designed our design and technology curriculum to build up pupils’ knowledge and skills and to inspire pupils to be forward-thinking, passionate about their ideas and willing to take risks. We provide opportunities for our children to solve real and relevant problems in a variety of contexts through the process of evaluating past and present designs, designing, making and evaluating their product.

A child at Rainford CE Primary School will be able to:

• Evaluate products and use these evaluations to inform their planning;
• Design purposeful and appealing products;
• Use and understand a range of key vocabulary;
• Use a range of tools to perform practical tasks;
• Improve their products by re-evaluating;
• Discuss marketing ideas for their product (links to industry);
• Identify healthy food groups and prepare healthy meals (links to home).

We follow the aims of the 2014 National Curriculum for design and technology, which states that children should:

• Develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world;
• Build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users;
• Critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others;
• Understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook.

The curriculum content is sequenced to build learning over time – the content is planned and sequenced so that knowledge and skills build on prior learning and towards clearly defined end points; curriculum content supports subsequent learning: within lessons, lesson sequences, topics, years and phases curriculum; planning identifies small enough component steps; and known gaps in knowledge and skills are addressed in the sequencing of lesson content.

The National Curriculum provides the structure and skill development for our Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 DT curriculum, whilst the Early Learning Goals provide the structure and skill development for EYFS pupils. Our design and technology curriculum has a sequential design, ensuring that each aspect of DT is taught once per key stage (key stage 1, lower key stage 2, upper key stage 2), with food units being taught yearly. Food units have been placed according to the seasonality of required ingredients and alternate on the cycle between either fruit or vegetable focus or seasonality or cultural focus. Non-food units have either been placed according to wider school events, cross-curricular links or to allow for revision. For example, the Shell Structures unit in Year 4 has been placed in the autumn term to coincide with Recycle Week in September. This unit builds upon the knowledge and skills taught in the Free-standing Structures unit in Year 2 and will be built upon by the Frame Structures unit in Year 6.

At the beginning of the 2021-2022 academic year, the cyclical design of our KS1 curriculum changed to reflect the schooling needs of our local community. Year 1 and Year 2 pupils are taught separate units rather than following the previous Key Stage 1 cycle, as one-form entry means there is no longer a need for the two-year cycle in this subject for our school. As of the 2022-2023 academic year, Year 3 and Year 4 pupils are also taught separate units rather than following the previous Lower Key Stage 2 cycle.

Long term planning