Our Design & Technology curriculum is taught discretely through specific concepts and themes, which is underpinned by the accelerated learning approach to teaching and learning.

The key concepts, principles and themes have been developed from the National Curriculum into a range of progressive knowledge and skills through which the children are helped to grow and develop to succeed in 21st century Britain. This progressive curriculum allows a purposeful way of teaching and learning, enabling us to provide a more meaningful and sequential approach to the schema for DT.

At Summer Lane, Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. Using creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. They acquire a broad range of subject knowledge and draw on various disciplines to inspire their learning.

The Design and Technology curriculum we offer is designed to meet the needs of all our pupils. It is rich, varied, imaginative and ambitious and meets the needs of individual learners by can easily be adapted for pupils with additional needs.

The intent of our Design & Technology curriculum is to provide an inspiring, rigorous and practical learning experience that fosters creativity and imagination in our pupils. Through a variety of creative and practical activities, we aim to equip students with the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in a process of designing and making. Our curriculum focuses on three key areas: product design, mastering the maker techniques and food technology.

In product design, pupils will learn to solve real and relevant problems, working with a range of materials including textiles and resistant materials. The mastery of making techniques will be explored through hands-on experiences, allowing students to develop their skills across various contexts such as home, school, leisure and industry. Food technology will be integrated following the national curriculum requirements, promoting a 'pro-food' approach and developing core competences for children aged 5 to 11 years. By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils will have gained the ability to work in relevant contexts, applying their design and technology skills to create innovative solutions.

Our Design and Technology curriculum is taught discretely through specific concepts and themes, to ensure depth and rigour in key subject concepts and context. The Design and Technology curriculum is rich and varied and provides our pupils with the skills required for life in the 21st Century

Planned, systematic encounters with substantive concepts in specific and varied contexts support pupils’ progress. Many of these concepts feature regularly throughout the study of DT in a range of disciplines.

• Design
• Make
• Evaluate
• Technical Knowledge

The Accelerated Learning Cycle, based on the work of Alastair Smith, is applied in all lessons. It stems from the idea of a supportive and challenging learning environment. The cycle has active engagement through multi-sensory learning, encourages the demonstrating understanding of learning in a variety of ways and the consolidation of knowing.

A gather, skills, apply approach to planning and delivery of lessons is taken across school to ensure children develop a deep understanding of specific skills and are able to apply these in a range of situations.

Our curriculum is designed with a core focus on retrieval practice, recognising its pivotal role in helping students know more and remember more. This intent is actualised through a dual approach: integrated retrieval within individual lessons and a structured, subject retrieval practice rota. In-session retrieval activities are carefully crafted to reinforce key concepts and knowledge, promoting immediate recall and application. Complementing this, our weekly retrieval practice rota systematically revisits content across various subjects, ensuring spaced repetition and interleaving of crucial information. This comprehensive strategy aims to strengthen neural connections, facilitate the transfer of knowledge to long-term memory and build increasingly complex mental models. By embedding retrieval practice as a fundamental aspect of our curriculum, we strive to enhance our pupils' ability to retain, recall and apply their learning effectively, thereby fostering deeper understanding and more robust academic progress.

Our curriculum is ambitious for all pupils, including those children with SEND. Curriculum designers and teachers have high expectations of what SEND pupils can achieve and the curriculum is not diluted or unnecessarily reduced for SEND pupils. Every pupil is different and so what works for each pupil varies. Pupil’s individual needs are considered and adaptations are planned to ensure the success of pupils in all subjects.

The way that our curriculum is designed ensures that chunks of learning are sequenced in a coherent way to enable all pupils, including those with SEND, to build on prior knowledge. Too much information at once can be a barrier to learning which is one of the reason why we have chosen half termly curriculum drivers.

Where pupils are identified with having complex needs, it may be appropriate to provide a personalised curriculum which will be based on individual needs and will retain ambition for the pupil.

Where working memory is an issue for pupils, including those with SEND, we look to reduce extraneous load as much as possible as well as identifying key information when teaching. This helps pupils to pay attention to the content which they are expected to learn. Adaptations to support individual pupils will be recorded on personal school support plans.

We appreciate that it is not appropriate to adopt a one size fits all approach to SEND provision and in design and technology, adaptations are based on individual needs where appropriate. Targeted teaching can be effective to ensure that individual pupils achieve specific goals, starting with identifying subject matter to support those pupils who struggle with abstract ideas. When introducing pupils to the work of designers, it can be useful to start with identifiable subject matter so that pupils have more chance of making sense of the construction and design process. Time is also planned to ensure pupils with SEND are pre-taught vocabulary to support their understanding. Teachers may need to make adaptations to ensure that SEND learners can access the curriculum, such as adjusting equipment or allowing additional time.

Formative assessment is ongoing throughout each lesson. It judges progress and enables teachers to make flexible adaptions to their planned teaching. Through this regular ongoing assessment, tasks are matched to the ability of each child through adapted activities and including adult support, providing a level of challenge that is stimulating for pupils and questioning skills. Alongside the analysis of data, the curriculum document for Design & Technology is regularly reviewed to identify any gaps or misconceptions to be addressed. This allows children to acquire complex skills that depends on the fundamentals of their prior knowledge in a well designed curriculum sequence.