Our Intent
At Monteagle Primary School, our Design and Technology curriculum is to provide every child with ambitious and practical learning experiences that develop creativity, problem-solving, and technical knowledge. Children will gain hands-on experience in nutrition, textiles, mechanisms (including electronics), and structures. They will learn to design, make, test, and evaluate products with purpose, applying their understanding of materials, systems, and processes. Our DT curriculum ensures children experience the full design cycle, enabling them to solve real problems in imaginative and practical ways. Across their learning, children are encouraged to take creative risks, reflect on their work, and refine their ideas. By the end of primary school, pupils will be equipped with the skills, confidence, and enthusiasm to continue their journey as thoughtful designers, creative problem-solvers, and innovators of the future.
Our Implementation
Design and Technology is taught through a carefully planned two-year cycle across each key stage, ensuring full coverage of the four key strands: nutrition, textiles, mechanisms (including electronics), and structures. Each year, pupils complete two dedicated DT units, delivered as immersive, practical project weeks. This model allows children to fully engage with the design process, apply their creativity and problem-solving skills, and see a project through from concept to completion.
DT is taught by class teachers using high-quality planning and resources based on the PlanBee scheme of work. This provides clear progression of knowledge and skills, consistent coverage of national curriculum objectives, and detailed support for technical vocabulary, key concepts, and subject knowledge. Teachers are encouraged to adapt projects where appropriate to reflect pupils’ interests, needs, and real-life contexts, ensuring relevance and engagement.
Each project follows the full design cycle: pupils research and generate ideas, design and plan their products, select and use materials and tools with increasing accuracy, test and evaluate their outcomes, and reflect on how they could improve. This approach enables pupils to think and work like real designers and engineers, developing creativity, critical thinking, and resilience.
Cross-curricular links are embedded where meaningful — for example, applying mathematical skills for measuring and scaling, scientific understanding when exploring forces or electrical circuits, and knowledge of nutrition from science and PSHE.
Finished products are celebrated and shared within the school community, giving pupils a sense of pride and purpose in their creations. Through this structured, hands-on approach, pupils develop a secure understanding of the design process, practical making skills, and an appreciation of how design and technology contribute to solving real-world problems and improving everyday life.
Our Impact
By the end of their primary journey at our school, pupils will have nurtured their creativity, technical knowledge, and practical skills to confidently and independently design and make purposeful, functional products. They will appreciate that design and technology is about solving real-world problems, enhancing existing ideas, and creating innovative solutions that improve everyday life.
Pupils will demonstrate a deepening understanding of the entire design cycle — from researching and generating ideas, through planning, making, testing, and evaluating — applying this process confidently across diverse contexts. They will select and use materials, tools, and techniques safely and appropriately, drawing on skills in areas such as nutrition, textiles, mechanisms (including electronics), and structures.
Children will articulate the reasoning behind their designs using accurate technical vocabulary and evaluate their own work and that of others with respect and constructive insight. They will show resilience and adaptability when facing challenges, embodying the perseverance and problem-solving mindset that designers and engineers use in the wider world.
Evidence captured through learning journeys, photographs, and final products will show clear progression in knowledge and skills over time, alongside growing confidence in creativity and problem-solving. Pupil voice will reflect enjoyment of the practical, hands-on nature of design and technology, and pride in the achievements gained from completing a finished, working product.
By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils will leave with the confidence to take creative risks, the skills to bring their ideas to life, and a strong appreciation of how design and technology shape the world around them — fully prepared to continue developing these abilities at secondary school and beyond, guided by our values of trust, respect, and working hard.
Supporting Documents
Design Technology Unit Overview 25-26
