Aims and purposes of design and technology
Design and technology offers opportunities for children to:
- develop their designing and making skills;
- develop knowledge and understanding;
- develop their capability to create high quality products through combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding;
- nurture creativity and innovation through designing and making;
- explore values about and attitudes to the made world and how we live and work within it;
- develop an understanding of technological processes, products, and their manufacture, and their contribution to our society.
Content of design and technology at key stages 1 and 2
In design and technology, children acquire and apply knowledge and understanding of:
- materials and components;
- mechanisms and control systems;
- structures;
- existing products;
- quality;
- health and safety.
Children:
- develop designing skills, including generating and developing ideas, clarifying a task, creating design proposals, communicating ideas, planning and evaluating;
- acquire and refine the practical skills associated with making, including working with materials and components, tools and processes, eg planning, measuring and marking out, cutting and shaping, joining and combining, finishing, and evaluating;
- apply scientific skills, eg predicting and fair testing;
- apply mathematical skills, eg measuring to an appropriate number of decimal places, drawing and interpreting tables, graphs and bar charts;
- apply IT skills, eg making things happen by the use of control, handling information through the use of a database or spreadsheet;
- apply art skills, eg investigating texture and colour or recording visual information.
Language and communication
Children:
- develop language skills through questioning, describing and explaining, presenting their own ideas using different kinds of writing suitable for different audiences and through discussion, eg of their ideas, of existing products, and of their work and that of others;
- use technological, scientific and mathematical language including appropriate technical vocabulary and drawing, eg diagrams and charts, to communicate ideas and findings;
- develop drawing skills, eg sketching and formal drawing, and practise specific skills in relation to symbols and conventions;
- seek information and data, and determine what is valuable and what can be used in their work, eg nutritional information, research results, trend analysis;
- read non-fiction texts and extract information, eg from reference books, CD-ROMs and the Internet;
- use correct and precise language. The vocabulary appropriate to describe a concept may change at different stages of a child's development, eg 'up and down movement' at key stage 1, 'linear movement' at key stage 2.
Values and attitudes
Children:
- work both independently and with others, listening to others' ideas and treating these with respect;
- can be creative, flexible and show perseverance;
- critically evaluate existing products, their own work and that of others;
- develop a respect for the environment and for their own health and safety and that of others;
- recognise the strengths and limitations of a range of technologies and appreciate which are appropriate for particular situations;
- develop their cultural awareness and understanding and appreciate the value of differences and similarities;
- develop an understanding that all people are equal regardless of age, race, gender or ability and that there needs to be alternative solutions to meet the needs of individuals and groups of people;
- find enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose through designing and making;
- apply value judgements of an aesthetic, economic, environmental, moral, scientific and technical nature.
Building on children's earlier experiences
Many children will have attended nursery and reception classes where they will have had opportunities to find out and learn about the world they live in. These experiences are likely to have included:
- asking questions about how things work, eg everyday objects;
- talking about what they are doing and what they have discovered;
- learning about a variety of customs and cultures;
- responding to drawings and pictures and drawing their own;
- investigating and using a variety of construction kits, materials, tools and products;
- using a range of materials to express ideas;
- exploring colour, shape, texture and form;
- selecting their own resources;
- developing making skills, eg cutting, folding, mixing, joining, and building for a variety of purposes;
- handling appropriate tools and construction materials safely and with increasing control.
This scheme aims to build on these early experiences.
Expectations
Broad issues of progression can be expressed as expectations for each key stage.
By the end of key stage 1, most children will be able to:
- use a range of materials to design and make simple products;
- select materials, tools and techniques and explain their choices;
- understand simple mechanisms and structures;
- measure, assemble, join and combine materials in a variety of ways using basic tools safely;
- investigate and evaluate simple products, commenting on the main features.
By the end of key stage 2, most children will be able to:
- use knowledge and understanding of a range of materials, components and techniques to design and make quality products;
- evaluate work as it develops and, if necessary, suggest alternatives;
- produce designs and plans which list the stages involved in making a product, and list tools and materials used;
- accurately measure, mark, cut, join and combine a variety of materials, working safely and recognising hazards to themselves and others;
- understand the use of electrical and mechanical systems and more complex structures;
- evaluate what is or is not working well in a product.
Features of progression
Progression in design and technology can be characterised by:
- an increase in knowledge, skills and understanding;
- moving from familiar to unfamiliar concepts;
- meeting needs which demand more complex or difficult solutions;
- an increase in a child's own understanding of their learning.
Progression in design and technology describes in more detail how progression can be characterised. This may be helpful to teachers in drawing up their own plans or modifying this scheme.
Progression in design and technology
At the early stages of developing capability, children should be able to:
- generate and develop ideas through talking about what their design has to do, handling materials and, where appropriate, drawing;
- increasingly take account of people's needs and wants;
- reflect more on their ideas;
- draw what they have made;
- recognise and begin to select suitable tools and materials;
- apply their previous knowledge and experience;
- suggest achievable ways forward and begin to suggest improvements to their own models.
As children make progress, they should:
- become more involved in finding out information useful to their designing and use their experience of products and applications as the stimulus for ideas;
- use 2D and 3D models to try out and develop ideas as they become more reflective about their designs;
- suggest an increasing number of achievable ways forward and develop simple plans which take into account the resources available;
- start combining and shaping materials to create products which meet their intentions;
- use tools safely and with increasing accuracy.
As children make further progress, they should:
- use a variety of information sources for their research, and set criteria for their designs, which increasingly take account of the views and preferences of the intended user;
- become more familiar with techniques, eg brainstorming and product analysis to generate ideas, and have a clearer sense of priorities in their design proposals;
- use a range of modelling techniques and be able to justify the decisions they make;
- plan and evaluate in a more considered manner, and show a greater awareness of constraints and the implications of their designs;
- draw upon a greater range of techniques and skills to create quality products for identified purposes;
- become increasingly competent at matching how they work to the materials and the task.
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