Design Technology
Design Technology Vision
(Subject Lead: Mrs S. Wyse)
At Alexandra Junior School, our vision is to provide children with a real life contect for learning. We want to allow our children to aspire to excel by providing opportunites for them in the wider world. Through the D.T. curriculum, children should be inspired by engineers, designers, chefs and architects to enable them to create a range of structures, mechanisms, textiles, electrical systems and food products with a real putpose in life.
Integrated within our daily life is our Alexandra Promise to our pupils and our school context-based drivers, the 5E’s (Excel yourself, Embrace yourself, Explore the world, Engage with others, Express yourself). For instance, our language rich and discussion based Desing and Technology provision supports essential knowledge and skill development for the pupils at Alexandra Junior School (links with Express yourself).
Our children are naturally curious and passionate about learning. At Alexandra Junior School, the aim of the Design and Technology curriculum is to enhance and strengthen pupil’s creativity and have a positive impact on their personal development, technical understanding and skills needed to perform daily tasks confidently which will enable each puil to grow through learning and experience in an increasingly technical world. The DT curriculum is designed to stimulate pupil’s imagination and engage then in practical hands on experience to realise their ideas and to experiment with different materials. They learn how to take design risks, helping them to become resourceful, innovative and enterprising citizens. By providing a stimulating curriculum, we promote and nurtures the children’s natural curiosity and their on-going knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Through hands-on activities, children experience the joy of learning ‘how’ and ‘why’. We seek to promote this open-mindedness and further develop their enquiring minds, so they become increasingly more confident as independent learners.
We believe in equality of access, and endeavour to unlock pupils’ potential for future life choices. We encourage pupils to be confident to ask questions and not to be afraid of getting it wrong, but instead viewing it as an opportunity to learn. Coupling this with aspirations enables the children to see how future careers link to Design and Technology concepts.
The following are the principles of Design and Technology teaching at Alexandra Junior School, decided and agreed by the children and staff.
- We are excited and ask questions (Explore the World, Express yourself)
- We are active in our activities and engaged in our learning (Engaged in our learning)
- We take part in practical ‘hands on’ investigations (Engage with others)
- We connect the experiences we have in science to other subject areas
- We are developing our understanding and extending our learning (Excel yourself)
- We are exploring, investigating and discovering new ideas and concepts.
- We investigate, experiment and explain our ideas (Explore the World)
- We are not afraid to fail. In the words of Thomas Edison: ‘I have not failed; I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” (Excel yourself)
- Design and Technology has the E Factor! – Explore, Engage, Enquire, Explain
At Alexandra Junior School, we have a whole school ethos of respecting both the immediate and wider environment and community. We encourage the children to be responsible and recognise how lucky we are to have our school grounds to be used as a resource.
By providing these opportunities, we ensure that our children are motivated, confident, life-long learners who will continue to explore the world around them, way beyond their time at primary school.
We welcome you to review the Curriculum and Pedagogy documents to see how the Design and Technology curriculum is put into practice.
