Meet Diana: Our Longmoor Curriculum Design Character

Diana Design loves nothing more than to draw and design something new. She loves to work with lots of different materials to create a master piece which she then likes to appraise and evaluate to see if she could improve it.

Diana wants to see you learn how to prepare food, use fabric, wood and cardboard, use frames, levers, pulleys, switches and circuits. She wants you to draw clear designs, use labels, adapt and then evaluate the finished product you have made carefully and accurately.

Design Technology at Longmoor

At Longmoor Primary School, we believe that design and technology helps to prepare children for the developing world and encourages them to become curious and creative problem-solvers, both as individuals and as part of a team.

From EYFS to year 6, through the study of design and technology, pupils combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues. Design and technology helps all children to become discerning and informed consumers and potential innovators. It provides children with a greater awareness and understanding of how everyday products are designed and made.

Our aims are:

• to develop imaginative thinking in children and to enable them to talk about what they like and dislike when designing and making;
• to enable children to talk about how things work, and to draw and model their ideas;
• to encourage children to select appropriate tools and techniques for making a product, whilst following safe procedures;
• to foster enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose in designing and making.

At Longmoor Primary School we use a skills based, cross-curricular approach to teaching and learning using objectives taken from the National Curriculum in conjunction with support materials from The Design Technology Association (DATA). We have adapted the National Curriculum scheme to the local circumstances of our school in that we use the local environment and our topic plan as the starting point for certain aspects of our work. We teach DT skills discretely and through our Curriculum themes, ensuring all children access all areas of the Design Technology Curriculum. To meet the requirements of the National Curriculum it is essential that our curriculum is taught with a focus on the following key areas: Mechanisms - Textiles - Food – Structures. 

In Early Years Foundation Stage, Design and Technology is an integral part of teaching and learning, relating aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals across all seven areas of learning. These underpin the curriculum planning for children aged three to five. This learning forms the foundations for later work in design and technology. These early experiences include asking questions about how things work, investigating and using a variety of construction kits, materials, tools and products, developing making skills and handling appropriate tools and construction material safely and with increasing control.