At Lessness Heath we believe that Design & Technology offers a plethora of opportunities for our children to succeed, both now and in their exciting next steps in life. Our D.T. Curriculum aims to equip our children with real-life skills that they will use time and time again to help them solve problems, consider the needs and wants of others and create and evaluate an end product.

We encourage our children to think deeply about the reasons why they are designing, based on the needs of the end user, thinking about this to help them in constructing a product or outcome. To help in this aim, our children analyse and test similar products in our initial design phases, giving them important lessons from real-life designers that they can then take forward into their own work.

Over the course of our learner's D.T. journey here at Lessness Heath, they develop and practise key skills that build over time, meaning that they have several opportunities to master techniques that will serve them for a lifetime, such as sewing and understanding how to cook. We also encourage our children to rehearse skills from across the curriculum within our D.T. sessions, helping them to further practise maths, science and art skills to name just a few.

To help our children truly focus on the project they are undertaking, our children focus on a D.T. week once every long term, meaning they can gain the momentum needed to design and create a truly high-quality outcome at the end of this focused period of learning. At the end of each D.T. week, parents are invited into the school to take part in a D.T. showcase event, meaning that our children's creations can be appreciated by our wider community as well.

We aim for all of our D.T. learners to:

• Have significant levels of creativity and be willing to take risks to construct new and innovative ideas.
• Have the skills needed to manage their time constructively and efficiently, especially when working with others.
• Be able to think about what research they need to conduct to help them have an excellent understanding of the needs of others.
• Have the ability to make responsible choices when creating and designing.
• Have an excellent knowledge of which equipment and materials to use to make a range of outcomes.
• Be able to manage risks well to create products safely and hygienically.