Design & Technology

  • Intent

    At St Mary and St John, from EYFS to Year 6, our Design curriculum intends to develop creativity and imagination, enabling pupils to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems in a variety of contexts, considering needs, wants and values and making links between their own work and that of scientists, engineers and designers. Pupils acquire a broad range of subject knowledge linked to maths, science, computing and art. They also develop social characteristics such as resourcefulness, innovatively and enterprising skills. To support the progress of skills, pupils evaluate past and present design and technology and develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world including nutrition and cookery.

  • Implemention

    How Design and Technology is taught at St. Mary and St John Catholic Primary School? 


    • Our design curriculum provides a clear and comprehensive scheme of work that will show progression of skills across all key stages within the strands of the Design and Technology National Curriculum: that children are given an opportunity to present their creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world; to build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users; critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others; understand and apply the principles of nutrition and learn how to cook

    • Teaching should plan for a final piece of design work to be produced/displayed at the end of each half-termly topic.

    • Design and Technology at St. Mary and St John Primary School is taught in discrete half termly units with all classes teaching design at the same. This allows the children to achieve depth in their learning and teachers are able to see clear progression across school.

    • Planning is informed by and aligned with the national curriculum. In addition, staff have access to the PlanBee planning tool and resources, however, teachers lesson design is not limited by this and is informed by national agencies, such as STEM. Consideration is given to how greater depth will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion. Outcomes of work are regularly monitored to ensure that they reflect a sound understanding of the key identified knowledge. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) follows the ‘Development Matters in the EYFS’ guidance which aims for all children in reception to ‘Develop Expressive Arts and Design’: Creating with Materials, Being Imaginative and Expressive and to have an ‘Understanding of the World; people and communities, the world and technology’ by the end of the academic year. Both of which support development in design and technology.

    • Subject Sharing Assemblies are planned in at the end of every half term and each year group is given the opportunity to talk about and share their work/project with the whole school. 

    • Regular work in sketch books in all classes throughout the year takes place. Sketch books are passed up to the next year group to show progression and monitored by the Subject Leader. Children should be using their sketch books frequently as a place for them to experiment and try out techniques. 

    • Across school pupils use a range of materials and media to develop design techniques in the style of the subject studied and produce a piece of work which may have been modified/developed with a view to the liked topic designer.

    • Pupils will be taught about great designers in history with equal attention being paid to men as well as women artists.

    • Visits to relevant galleries or museums are widely encouraged across school. 

    • Termly ‘share the learning’ afternoons enable a variety of subject learning to be shared with parents/carers throughout the year.


  • Impact

    How will we measure the impact of our Design Technology Curriculum?


    • At St Mary and St John Catholic Primary School, we have devised a subject specific Assessment Tracker that determines children’s development of skills, understanding and informs teachers planning. This is completed on a termly basis by the class teacher, and is shared with Subject Leaders and SLT. 

    • Subject Leaders also carry out regular learning walks, Book Looks, lesson observations and pupil discussions. 

    • Book Swaps are a regular feature in our Staff Meeting time and give us valuable opportunity to review the curriculum and quality of teaching and learning

    • Action Plans are reviewed termly by Subject Leaders and shared annually with Governors.


  • Aspirations

    We strive to instil creativity and lifelong aspiration in all our children and feel confident that our new whole school Design and Technology curriculum will teach children not only the necessary skills to be great designers as they continue on to High School but also embed a lifelong love of design

Meet The Subject Coordinator

Miss Gregory
Design & Technology Coordinator

My passion/ personal experience with D&T


From a young age I have loved creating things, whether it was creating something out of old boxes or designing my own house. My favourite thing was playing with tools and building things outside or even making dens outdoors with my friends in the woods or having Christmas craft days at Primary school. Those are the moments I remember. I have always loved Design and studied Graphic Design, Art & Design at college and then Interior Architecture at University. I am passionate about the skills that children can develop through a broad and rich cross curricular, subject. Design Technology encourages Maths, Science, Technology, RSHE and lots of growth mindset! Design technology provides different and hands on opportunities for the children to learn new skills .


Experiences in Our School


Every class in our school takes part in Design Technology every half term to develop our knowledge, skills and understanding in Design, Technical knowledge and making, Evaluation and Cooking and Nutrition. Even from the age of Reception, are curriculum is planned to support a proper sequence for Design technology, ensuring children have a basic understanding and skills in knowing how to make or build a project. Alongside our learning through Design Technology in class, we enjoy workshop days with outside agencies, and asking those in the Local area to visit and help us create some exciting things. Such as Kat Button working closely with Year 3 to make 3D models from textiles. 


Hopes and Goals in D&T


From our pupil voice questionnaires and pupil champions meetings, the children were very keen to learn more cookery skills, therefore, I organised a three day DT food workshop for all children in school to take part in, where they can focus on improving their technical knowledge about food and how to prepare it.  Our staff are also looking forward to continuing developing their own skills and knowledge in DT through staff CPD and training. We are hoping that our children continue to make good progress in this subject, and further improve their confidence and independence in evaluating and analysing. I have also delivered a TinkerCAD club to support KS2 with their CAD skills as this is an important skill for the future. The children creations using our 3D printer were amazing and this is something we want to continue to develop and build confidence with.