At Wolfson Hillel, we use the national curriculum for D&T as a jumping-off point to explore a wide range of knowledge and challenges through 12 engaging and varied projects. Each project has a knowledge focus which is consistently revisited throughout a child’s time at Hillel. These are – Mechanisms, monitoring and control, structures and textiles.
Our D&T curriculum aligns closely with the D&T association planning documents. For each project focus, Hillel’s D&T curriculum is broken down into 4 main areas – Designing, making, evaluating and technical knowledge. While some projects may dive in greater depth into one of these areas, every project our students undertake will require an understanding and development of all four of these areas. The students will build upon and strengthen their understanding of these areas throughout KS1 and KS2. Our projects are designed to allow the students a wide scope of opportunities, both individually and in groups, to challenge themselves to think of creative and lateral solutions to solve design-based problems.
This is a fundamental element of each project, which nurtures the children’s ability to make their own judgments on the best course of action for each challenge posed and to predict any possible obstacles they may face. The focus of design is to consider the purpose and user for each project. It is vital that all children understand, over the course of their schooling, that design is not limited to the start of a project. They will learn to regularly return to their design as new and unforeseen problems develop, constantly adapting and improving their designs throughout. Design should include a combination of communicating ideas in groups, drawing, writing or even making in the form of simple prototypes.
The children are encouraged to think about which equipment and tools would best serve their design. They will have the opportunity to develop a range of making skills including measuring, cutting, joining, finishing, circuit building and coding. Each will be revisited throughout the course of projects. It is important that all children understand and follow hygiene and safety procedures during this element of the project.
In Key Stage 1 this may be helping the children to hold and use scissors correctly or being shown safe ways of holding and using sewing pins. In Key Stage 2 this could be giving the children safety demonstrations before being allowed to use glue guns and saws. Extra support and guidance for staff in safety advice and correct use of tools is available from subject leads.
Children will have time towards the end of each project to evaluate their entire process, including but not limited to their final piece. They will think about what has worked well, problems that occurred and how successfully they were able to adapt and redesign to solve these problems. This should then inform their next project. In Key Stage One, this will be supported by a class teacher towards the end of the project, giving the children time to reflect on what went well and what could be improved next time.
As the students move up the school into Key Stage 2, evaluating will become embedded into every part of their project. After each new attempt or prototype is made, the students will learn to re-evaluate their work and any flaws in their designs. Ultimately we aim to see all children independently able to evolve their design and making process through the course of a single project, based on constant re-evaluation.
Throughout their time at school, the children will develop a growing technical vocabulary to aid in discussions in their projects. Through D&T and computing lessons they will also strengthen their knowledge of computer programing to help them to design more complex mechanical systems.
As previously mentioned, many elements of a D&T project will necessitate 2 or 3 of these main areas working in parallel. If for example, a Year 6 child realises, through the making process, that their chosen joining material (masking tape) will not support the weight of their frame structure, they will have to return to the design. Will they redesign their structure with a stronger joining material or with a smaller, lighter frame? In order to overcome this obstacle the child will learn that they must regularly revisit, re-evaluate and alter their designs, adjusting to new circumstances.
It is therefore important that we help the children to see each area of the D&T curriculum as 1 of 4 tools that only when used together can help them to unlock the challenges faced in a project.
We have an exciting cooking curriculum at Wolfson Hillel structured around three annual projects and designed to take full advantage of our newly built school kitchen. Each year the children will learn how to cook three dishes (2 savoury and 1 sweet). The knowledge required to achieve this will be built upon previous years’ learning, resulting in more varied and complex dishes being created as our students journey up the school. Each new project will challenge the students to adapt and apply a range of previously learnt skills while continuing to develop upon them.
Cooking also gives the children the opportunity to learn important health and safety lessons which can only be fully understood when experienced practically. This begins with learning the need for washing of hands and equipment and leads to safe use of knives and ovens. To ensure all children are able to access these key safety skills at the very start of their cooking curriculum, Year 1 children use the kitchen in smaller groups of 6, accompanied by 2 adults.
In parallel with the practical cooking lessons, the children also learn in class about the wider concepts of food and cookery. These lessons have two main objectives:
Design and Technology are taught over two projects each year, organised to ensure key knowledge is revisited consistently over a child’s time at Hillel. Each project is given 9 lessons to complete over the span of 3 weeks. This provides teachers and students the additional time to experiment, explore and test different ideas and not feel any pressure to complete the project perfectly on the first attempt.
The 4 knowledge foci (mechanisms, motoring and control, structures and textiles) are staggered to be taught repeatedly, usually over a 2 or 3-year cycle. Each time a knowledge focus is revisited, the children are challenged to delve into more detail and face more complex challenges in this area. This is why it is vital that all children fully understand the previous years’ learning to help them to push themselves further with each new project. We ensure that all children understand that although specific knowledge such as sewing or coding may be revisited every 2 years, the majority of D&T skills (attaining to design, making and evaluating) will help them through all the projects they undertake.
In order to support our vision, subject leads regularly take part in courses which will either be fed back directly into teacher training sessions or progress the curriculum further. This ensures a dynamic and evolving curriculum for all staff to engage with.
A large range of high-quality resources are provided in each project to encourage creativity and lateral thinking to find novel solutions to the task’s problems.
Knowledge Organisers summarise key information that will be taught in each project using age-appropriate vocabulary. This should help give the students clarity in the core aims and targets of each project as they begin to explore. See examples below:
At Hillel, we believe it essential that all staff share the same vision and passion for the projects we have crafted. Subject leads therefore are in regular contact with staff ensuring that they are happy and confident with the arc of lessons being taught and have the appropriate materials necessary to achieve their objectives. Subject leads also observe each year group over the year, ensuring that the children are engaging with the material being taught, understanding the curriculum objectives and vitally, showing an awareness of how each lesson fits into the overarching progression of that project. Books are also monitored to ensure the necessary objectives from the national curriculum are being met and that there is a wide variety of ways the children are being challenged over the course of a project. Teachers’ assessment of student progress is then made through a combination of workbook evidence (photos of making, plans, written work) and observations of the children working.
Throughout the D&T projects the children will be asked to read and research on their computers real world examples relating to their work. The children are also encouraged to learn the key vocabulary for each project to use in their writing. For our younger students in Key Stage 1, who are still developing their skills in independent research, we frame our projects around stories that can give context to their projects. For example in Year 1 the children build slider toys based around the story of ‘The hungry caterpillar’. After they have read this in class they are asked to design a slider that could help illustrate the book and bring the character to life.
Our Design and Technology projects give all children at Wolfson Hillel the opportunity to explore key life skills such as communication and problem-solving at their own pace. Subject Leads are continuously in discussion with teachers to provide ideas for differentiating work when necessary. We also work closely with our school SENCO to support and train staff to ensure all children can flourish in lessons. We have also ordered a range of project materials for children that may find certain skills more challenging e.g. larger sewing kits for children developing their fine motor skills.