Design Technology

Our Vision

At Oakwood Primary School, we are committed to providing every child with high-quality learning opportunities in Design and Technology. Through a broad, engaging and practical curriculum, pupils are encouraged to design and make products for a specific user and purpose, developing the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to solve real-life problems creatively and confidently.

Our Design and Technology curriculum is designed in line with the National Curriculum and, in the Early Years, is supported by the EYFS Framework, where children begin to explore, create, build and investigate through hands-on experiences. From the very start of their learning journey, children are encouraged to think imaginatively, test ideas and talk about how things work.

We believe that Design and Technology helps children make sense of the world around them. It gives them opportunities to explore how products are designed and made, both in the past and present, and to understand how design can be used to meet human needs and improve everyday life. Through this, children become thoughtful designers, informed users of products and aspiring innovators.

Our curriculum enables children to:

• develop the knowledge and skills needed to design and make high-quality products
• combine practical capability with creativity, technical knowledge and problem-solving
• take pride in their ideas and outcomes, developing a sense of enjoyment and achievement in making
• learn how to work both independently and collaboratively, showing teamwork and respect for the ideas of others
• approach challenges with passion, determination and self-belief
• evaluate products honestly and thoughtfully, developing honesty in reflecting on their own work and the work of others
• understand how design has been used throughout history and in the modern world to solve problems and improve lives

At Oakwood Primary School, it is our ambition that children leave with a strong understanding of the relevance of Design and Technology in the wider world. We want pupils to see the subject as more than just making things; it is a way of thinking, creating, improving and contributing. We aim to inspire children to recognise the wide range of future aspirations and careers linked to Design and Technology, and to understand the important role this subject plays in shaping the world around them.