Design Technology
At St John Fisher we use a curriculum designed by the D & T Association called Projects on a Page.
Projects on a Page is based on the six essentials of good practice in D&T. They are consistent with the National Curriculum requirements and should be applied whenever children are designing and making products:
• User – children should have a clear idea of who they are designing and making products for, considering their needs, wants, interests or preferences. The user could be themselves, an imaginary character, another person, client, consumer or a specific target audience.
• Purpose – children should know what the products they design and make are for. Each product should perform a clearly defined task that can be evaluated in use.
• Functionality – children should design and make products that function in some way to be successful. Products often combine aesthetic qualities with functional characteristics. In D&T, it is insufficient for children to design and make products which are purely aesthetic.
• Design Decisions – when designing and making, children need opportunities to make informed decisions such as selecting materials, components and techniques and deciding what form the products will take, how they will work, what task they will perform and who they are for.
• Innovation – when designing and making, children need some scope to be original with their thinking. Projects that encourage innovation lead to a range of design ideas and products being developed, characterised by engaging, open-ended starting points for children's learning.
• Authenticity – children should design and make products that are believable, real and meaningful to themselves i.e. not replicas or reproductions or models which do not provide opportunities for children to make design decisions with clear users and purposes in mind.
The six essentials are embedded into the Project Planners, each of which has suggestions for users and purposes, and a list of authentic products that children could design and make.
We look at how these projects best fit with the rest of curriculum being taught within the same half term so that links and purpose are evident.
