At William Penn, children receive a design and technology curriculum which allows them to exercise their creativity through designing and making. The children are taught to combine their design skills with knowledge/understanding to design a product.
Skills are taught progressively to ensure that all children are able to learn and practice in order to develop as they move through the school. Evaluation is an integral part of the design process and allows children to adapt and improve their product. Children’s interests are captured through topic learning, ensuring where possible that links are made in a cross curricular way, giving children motivation and meaning for their learning.
SEND
The range of teaching approaches that Design and Technology provides, enables the children to overcome barriers they may experience in other curriculum areas and help to cultivate self-confidence.
Children who struggle with poor fine motor skills are given a broad resource base to use in order to help them to develop these skills. They are also encouraged to work on a larger scale initially, decreasing in scale as they acquire greater control. There are a variety of different sized scissors available for children when cutting.
To make lesson content as accessible as possible, information is both visual and verbal. Time is given for discussion and sharing of ideas, plus key vocabulary is clearly displayed and referred to repeatedly throughout the lesson.
Teachers’ model processes step by step to ensure a greater level of understanding, this is effective when children complete the tasks practically alongside the teacher. Children with sensory needs have these taken into consideration and adaptations are made to the lesson if necessary for specific individuals. Adult support is made available for those children who need it as they work as part of a group or individually.