At Hallgate Primary School we offer a design and technology curriculum which is inspiring, rigorous, and practical. We support our children in using creativity and imagination, to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. We ensure that all children acquire appropriate subject knowledge, skills and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum. We create strong cross-curricular links with other subjects, such as mathematics, science, computing, and art, and have designed our design and technology curriculum to prepare our children, giving them the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences they need to be successful in later life.

Our units of work are linked to our topics and include food, mechanisms, structures, textiles, and in Key Stage 2, electrical systems. The children follow a familiar structure across the different units. This begins with evaluation of existing products, linked to a design brief presented in a ‘real world’ context. The children consider how products might be adapted, improved or repurposed in order to inform their own designs. They learn about the design process, producing labelled diagrams and the intended use of materials, considering a clear set of design criteria and the possible constraints of the materials and equipment they have available to them. This is followed by the making of their product, with a focus on the safe and correct use of materials and tools to produce high-quality models. Finally, the children evaluate their completed products, considering their success against the criteria agreed at the beginning of the unit. 

Through design and technology, we aim to provide the children with vibrant and engaging opportunities to be creative and problem-solve alongside their peers. Through their work, they are introduced to the ongoing nature of the evaluate, design, make, evaluate cycle, using examples of existing technology in the world around them and the way in which they continue to develop.