Curriculum Statement: Design Technology and Cooking Nutrition

Intent

Our Park House vision is to inspire and equip pupils with the skills for the future of Design Technology and Cooking Nutrition. At Park House, we intend for DT to be a practical subject, where pupils can use creativity and imagination to solve relevant and real design problems in a variety of contexts. We intend for Cooking Nutrition to also be very practical, with opportunity to prepare and cook a variety of dishes, using a range of techniques. Importantly, we believe that instilling a love of cooking in our pupils will enable them to become independent and creative, which will prepare them to look after themselves in later life. Pupils will also learn the importance of a balanced diet and food hygiene to ensure healthy futures for our children. These subjects will be closely linked to our Cornerstones curriculum topics where appropriate, to ensure there is purpose and range of contexts to children’s learning, whilst also linking their skills to other subject areas, e.g. History, geography, ICT. This means that DT at Park House will be taught in blocks/units over the year, where it fits in with each topic accordingly. Therefore, the children’s skills will progress over each key stage and year group, consolidating and building upon previous knowledge so that skills and knowledge becomes engrained. We aim for all children (including SEND and PP) to become confident in all key areas of the DT and Cooking Nutrition curriculum by progressively covering skills and knowledge and providing support within lessons for pupils who need.

Implementation

We aim to develop a strong subject knowledge of DT and Cooking Nutrition in our school by introducing training and professional development for teachers where appropriate. Teachers have been working with our own system of assessment for learning that links to the objectives covered in each lesson/ unit. This helps teachers and future teachers to plan for next steps. In our school, we strongly encourage all pupils to use specific, topic-related vocabulary. All children will be introduced to any subject-specific vocabulary needed for that lesson or for the block of lessons. They will also be encouraged to use this vocabulary during the lessons, to ensure a complete understanding of its meaning. If doing an activity in their books (e.g designing), they might have key vocabulary provided for them in their books or on the board so that they are able to refer to it throughout the lesson. Through effective teaching of DT and Cooking Nutrition, we develop children’s knowledge and key skills during each unit covered. Teachers will ensure that pupils embed key skills and knowledge by revisiting and revising key objectives for their key stage, where appropriate. Monitoring of children’s progression will take place through photographs and examples of pupil’s work being recorded and kept for reference. This will also help teacher’s make judgements about whether a child is emerging, expected or greater depth.

With effective subject management, we will be a well-equipped and resourced school. Equipment audits will take place every two years and staff will be able to make any requests for equipment needed for the following year. DT and Cooking Nutrition is taught in units throughout the year to ensure coverage and children will enjoy undertaking different projects, where they will work both collaboratively and independently to help one another towards their goal or intended outcome. There are cross-curricular links made throughout, with links to the Cornerstones Curriculum to ensure context, whilst keeping children interested and giving each unit of learning a purpose. In Early Years, DT and Cooking Nutrition is taught through many of the Early Learning Goals, such as: Creating with Materials - safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques; Fine Motor skills- begin to accuracy and care when drawing; and Speaking- participate in small group, class and one-to-one discussions, offering their own ideas, using recently introduced vocabulary . It is assessed through teacher observation and children’s work. 

Assessment: Formative assessment, involving; questioning, in the moment marking, observation and challenge will be used in every lesson. At the end of each unit, the children’s understanding and progress will be assessed against taught objectives to identify gaps in learning and summatively assess work. Teachers can use observations, children’s work in books and products made to assess children’s progress against curriculum expectations.  Data will be uploaded to ITrack and for EYFS, work will also be recorded in learning journals and on Tapestry, against the appropriate Learning Goals, which can be used to inform assessment against specific learning goals and then uploaded to ITrack. 

Monitoring: DT and Cooking Nutrition will be monitored through lesson observations, learning walks, examples and photographs of children’s work and from pupil voice. The DT Co-ordinator will also complete a yearly review of data to highlight any concerns and enable support for learning to be put in place for pupils who need it. 

Impact

In all classes, children have a wide range of abilities. Recognising this fact, we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child so that every child can achieve their best with the majority of children reaching the expected standard for DT and Cooking Nutrition. All children will develop confidence and enjoyment in Design Technology and Cooking Nutrition, and as designers and cooks, they will develop skills and attributes that they can use in adulthood to problem solve, think creatively and live healthy lives.