Design and technology is an integral part of our lives. At SASM, our children are exposed to a wide variety of tasks including cookery, sewing and assembling. A number of our topics have links with other subjects. For example in Year 4 children design and make buzz wire game, which part of a cross-curricular STEM project. This is taught alongside electricity in science and programming BBC Micro:Bits in computing.
We are extremely lucky to have our own DT cooking suite where all children get an opportunity to cook each term, making both savoury and sweet dishes as we follow our Healthy Baking Programme.
We would encourage you to try these recipes with your children at home. Please allow them to set up as well as wash and tidy up as these are critical skills that need to be encouraged.
Our teaching process
As stated in the national curriculum, ‘through a variety of creative and practical activities, pupils should be taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making’. At SASM we ensure we do this by following the principles for guiding and evaluating practise (as agreed by the National Curriculum Expert Group for DT)
Characteristics of a SASM’s genuine D&T experience
User - Who are they designing for?
Purpose - Create products that perform a task/ function
Functionality - Make products that work
Design decisions - Make their own designs
Innovation - Create a variety of final products
Authenticity - Make believable, real and meaningful products in real life contexts
Each of these principles is evident in every project that our pupils undertake. This ensures they get into good habits and are prepared for the wider world after they leave school. We follow a broadly similar process across the school for DT which includes: