Design and Technology

Design and technology is about providing opportunities for students to develop their capability, combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding in order to create quality products.

D&T at Canada Hill develops young children’s skills and knowledge in design, structures, mechanisms, electrical control and a range of materials, including food. We seek to develop children and young people’s practical designing and making ability, and their creativity in solving real and relevant problems.

Studying Design and Technology includes the use of a broad range of knowledge, skills, and understanding, and prompts engagement in a wide variety of activities. Pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts. Through evaluation of past and present Design and Technology, they develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world.  

The new English National Curriculum for Design and Technology sets out the minimum requirement for the subject. It is expected that schools will use this as a starting point and develop their own school curriculum to specifically meet the needs of their own pupils.

Schools are encouraged to develop their own individual ethos and vision for the subject. To see it as a dynamic, ongoing process involving pupils, teachers, parents, employers and representatives of industry. In this way, a curriculum can be developed that reflects the particular locality, environment, employment opportunities, and any particular focus individual schools may have.

We advocate the iterative design process developed by the Technology Research Unit at Goldsmiths College in the early 90s as a model for schools.

Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process. Based on the results of testing the most recent iteration of a design, changes and refinements are made.