At Irlam Endowed, we believe that a creative education allows for children’s creativity and imagination to be stimulated, through a wide range of media, processes, designing and making, performance, composition and listening activities.  Knowledge and understanding will be extended in individual children and skills to express themselves visually will be developed.  Creativity is a basic component of the cultural, social, artistic and creative needs, of both the individual and society.

Please find our creative policy as a link below.  This will show how we integrate the teaching of design and technology, and the other creative subjects into our planning and teaching.

In EYFS, we plan our lessons using the objectives from Development Matters.  Objectives fall into four areas of learning: Physical Development; Expressive Arts and Design; Understanding the World and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.  Early Learning Goals focus on objectives for Physical Development (motor skills) and Expressive Arts objectives (creating with materials).  Throughout their time in EYFS, children will be given opportunities to develop the required skills through direct teaching in all subjects and continuous provision.

We plan our lessons using the National Curriculum objectives.  Below are the objectives and subject content set for KS1 and KS2.  At Irlam Endowed, we plan and teach a creative curriculum.  This enables teachers to link the design technology taught to work in History or Geography, for example.  Each half term, a year group will have a chosen designer that they will research in depth before practising skills linked to the National Curriculum objectives.  They will also produce a final piece of work relating to the designer they have been studying or the objective they have focussed on. 

Subject content

Key stage 1

Through a variety of creative and practical activities, pupils should be taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making. They should work in a range of relevant contexts [for example, the home and school, gardens and playgrounds, the local community, industry and the wider environment].

When designing and making, pupils should be taught to:

Design

• design purposeful, functional, appealing products for themselves and other users based on design criteria.
• generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through talking, drawing, templates, mock-ups and, where appropriate, information and communication technology

Make

• select from and use a range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks [for example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing]
• select from and use a wide range of materials and components, including construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their characteristics.

Evaluate

• explore and evaluate a range of existing products.
• evaluate their ideas and products against design criteria Technical knowledge.
• build structures, exploring how they can be made stronger, stiffer and more stable.
• explore and use mechanisms [for example, levers, sliders, wheels and axles], in their products.

Key stage 2

Through a variety of creative and practical activities, pupils should be taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making. They should work in a range of relevant contexts [for example, the home, school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment].

When designing and making, pupils should be taught to:

Design

• use research and develop design criteria to inform the design of innovative, functional, appealing products that are fit for purpose, aimed at particular individuals or groups.
• generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches, cross-sectional and exploded diagrams, prototypes, pattern pieces and computer-aided design.

Make

• select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks [for example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing], accurately § select from and use a wider range of materials and components, including construction materials, textiles and ingredients, according to their functional properties and aesthetic qualities.

Evaluate

• investigate and analyse a range of existing products.
• evaluate their ideas and products against their own design criteria and consider the views of others to improve their work.
• understand how key events and individuals in design and technology have helped shape the world Technical knowledge.
• apply their understanding of how to strengthen, stiffen and reinforce more complex structures.
• understand and use mechanical systems in their products [for example, gears, pulleys, cams, levers and linkages].
• understand and use electrical systems in their products [for example, series circuits incorporating switches, bulbs, buzzers and motors].
• apply their understanding of computing to program, monitor and control their products.

Cooking and nutrition

As part of their work with food, pupils should be taught how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating. Instilling a love of cooking in pupils will also open a door to one of the great expressions of human creativity. Learning how to cook is a crucial life skill that enables pupils to feed themselves and others affordably and well, now and in later life.

Pupils should be taught to:

Key stage 1

• use the basic principles of a healthy and varied diet to prepare dishes.
• understand where food comes from.

Key stage 2

• understand and apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet.
• prepare and cook a variety of predominantly savoury dishes using a range of cooking techniques.
• understand seasonality and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed.

Children’s work:

In KS1 and KS2, we have planning sheets which are used by the children during the research and planning stage.  The children look at products that already exist and then use the knowledge gained to design their own product.  Each topic/ unit of work will have an outcome where children make/cook/produce a final product – this will usually link to the class topic for the current half term.  We also encourage children to be creative at home when completing their holiday homework: we try to give a range of ideas including things that they can make which further develops their design and technology skills.