At Raynham, our D&T curriculum is delivered through well-planned and resourced projects and experiences. Using creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems in various contexts.

Links to other curriculum subjects give purpose and context to the knowledge, concepts and skills taught. This enables pupils to make meaningful connections with mathematics, science, computing and art.

We follow the National Curriculum for the teaching of Design and Technology and teach it through a focus on the following three concepts:

• Designing with a focus on having a clear user and purpose for their product
• Making and ensuring all products serve a function and are authentic
• Learning to evaluate and analyse their own and other designer’s work

In order to enable our children to develop their skills and appreciation of Design and Technology, it is essential that our Design and Technology curriculum provides well-designed opportunities for children to learn and practice their skills progressively throughout the school, starting in the Early Years. Each year group’s curriculum builds on the learning from previous years, making links to past learning of both skills and knowledge. By the end of year 6, we want our children to have developed a real enjoyment and appreciation of Design and Technology, as well as having the skills which they can build on through secondary school and beyond.

We teach one Design and Technology project per term to ensure that the children receive quality teaching in the three main areas of Design and Technology. We use projects on a page to help inform our planning of our Design and Technology lessons, which gives the children the opportunities to cover the three concepts above and revisit them throughout their time in school to ensure knowledge and skills are embedded.

A key part of our Design and Technology curriculum is building cultural capital, exposing children to designers and projects they will not normally encounter.

Vocabulary enrichment runs through our whole curriculum, and Design and Technology lessons provide an excellent opportunity to develop vocabulary that can be used in many other subject areas.