Shaping Learning For Life

Stockbridge - Primary and Pre-school

A Stockbridge Designer

DT

Lower School

Even our youngest children are designing and making things with real life contexts.  They explore how things work and how things are made so that they can learn new techniques and explore different materials.

They follow the design, make, evaluate process and use common, everyday materials to produce something of quality.  Their learning is linked to their topics so that they see a purpose for their creations.

In the early years, this begins with junk modelling in a range of contexts, exploring how materials join together, how they can be shaped and altered as well as exploring modelling through computer programmes suitable for their age.

Lower School DT overview

Upper School

After laying the foundations of design and use of materials in lower school, our older children develop their understanding of functionality and something being ‘fit for purpose’; designing with an end user in mind in a way that is a significant step up from lower school learning.

They make choices about techniques and materials to use, design for a real life purpose and evaluate their product compared to their design brief.  Their designs are increasingly sophisticated and quality matters.

As part of our cultural capital programme, they also explore the work of famous designers and how they have shaped the spaces we live in, the products we use and how we function.  They look at the problems they’ve overcome and use them as role models in their own work.

Upper School DT overview