
Design and Technology
Here at Smithdown we value and encourage creativity in a wide range of ways. Design and Technology is a foundation subject in the National Curriculum and is found in many forms: clothes, books, home wear, sportswear – products which have been designed to help people with their needs. Design and Technology is part of every child’s immediate life experience. The subject encourages children to become creative problem-solvers, both as individuals and as part of a team. It enables them to identify needs and opportunities and to respond by developing ideas, and eventually making a range of products. Through the study of design and technology, they combine practical skills with an understanding of aesthetic, social and environmental issues, as well as of the products functions. This allows them to reflect on, and evaluate, past and present design and technology. Design and technology helps all children to become discriminating and informed consumers and potential innovators.
In Key Stage 1 the children will learn to design purposeful, functional and appealing products that are based on design criteria. They will make products by using a wide range of materials and develop the use of tools to cut, shape, join and finish. They will learn to evaluate products and suggest how it could be improved to be stronger, stiffer and more stable. They will learn to cook simple food with an emphasis on savoury dishes.
In Key Stage 2 the children will learn to design purposeful products that are aimed at particular individuals or groups. They will develop their ideas through detailed planning, evaluating product design, observational drawings and making prototypes. They will make products and learn how to use a wide variety of tools, equipment, materials and components. They will learn how to include mechanical, electrical and computer control into products. They will learn to design and cook food with an emphasis on savoury dishes.
Progression in D/T will be assessed through work completed in pupils sketch books, displays, written work and photographic evidence.
Please click here for our whole school overview for design and technology 2024-2025
National Curriculum for Design and Technology
Design and Technology Chatter


Ruth Wakefield – science week
For science week, we researched Ruth Wakefield. We learnt all about the temperatures needed and the variables that she changed. We then had a lesson in cookie making with our wonderful cook Monica and decorated the cookies with her face.

Today we have been reading Mr Wolf’s Pancakes. We have drawn Mr Wolf and made pancakes just like his recipe! 

Art project
What an amazing start to our art project. The children created their very own paper and then decorated it. Next in our sustainability art project is to up cycle clothing. We can’t wait for the outcomes.
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Our designs for our 150 Year bunting are really coming along. We are going to stitch “TOGETHER WE GROW” along with some pictures that remind us of school.
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Palaeolithic Stone Age
We made art that we would find in Palaeolithic caves. We worked together and made our caves walls as realistic as we could.
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Design and Technology today… textiles
We are having our first try at sewing using different stitches today. This is in preparation for designing and sewing our own bags.
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5JH Lion dance to celebrate the Lunar new year! 
We had an amazing afternoon in our lion dancing workshop. Happy Lunar New Year!

Running stitch
We all practised our binca running stitch so that we are ready to create our 150 year celebratory bunting.
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150 Years of Smithdown
We created some designs that we may use for our 150 year bunting. We will practise stitching so that we can attached our designs.
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Our Finished Moon Buggies
We have loved making our moon buggies today. Do you like them?
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Sawing Skills!
Year 2 have been busy sawing their doweling to make their wheels and axles for a new moon buggy!
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DT – Vehicles
In DT today we looked at a range of our own toys. We analysed how they moved and started to learn all about wheels and axles.
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Product Analysis
Today we looked at some moving vehicles in preparation for designing our own. We thought carefully about the object’s design features. We were very confident at identifying the object’s wheels and axle.
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Parent assembly and activities Year 3
We had a lovely morning with our Hands assembly and our DT craft activities. Thank you to all our adults who turned up to support us.
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Sequencing
This week in Mathematics, the children in class RJP have been focusing on sequencing. We explored the vocabulary, how ‘sequencing’ means to repeat a pattern. The children used paint to create an ‘ABBA’ pattern firstly, following the pattern, ‘red, green, red, green’. We then had lots of fun demonstrating the ‘ababab’ pattern using Christmas pictures, and designing a colourful paper-chain. To extend the learning, we explored different patterns, expanding on the number of picture cards, colours, and using shapes which have been learned previously. This helps the children problem solve sequencing in a fun way.
Why not keep up this learning at home, by asking the children to make repeated patterns using different objects.

Mechanisms!!
We created moving mechanisms using pivots and levers in our DT lesson with different types of cards, we created holes to bring the mechanism together with a spilt pin and made it move.
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Remembrance Day 2024
11:00 11.11.2024
Huge respect in our class to recognise the soldiers that have fallen in the past. We did a minute silence in the morning and then created amazing poppy art work based on our art topic ‘painting with scissors’ in the afternoon.
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Diwali lanterns
Today we are designing our Diwali lanterns for next week. We have learnt the story of Rama and Sita and thought about why Diwali is celebrated in Hindu religion. We are trying to focus on using Rangoli patterns.

Painting with scissors
We used Henri Matisse as our inspiration for our art topic. We used his method of painting with scissors to make our collages.
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Year 5 Primary Engineer Award
Earlier in the year, year 5 took part in a project with Primary Engineer and built moving locomotives with an electrical circuit. Today we celebrated each child taking part, awarded awards for best group work and also two boys took home the ‘Best communicator’ award. Well done, year 5!
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Cooking time again!
We had our second group to make our traditional Italian bolognese. They had a great time preparing the ingredient and seasoning it to perfection! Thanks to our amazing head chef once again – Monica.
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Volcanoes Eruptions!
We had an amazing afternoon erupting our volcanoes! We even had a very dangerous and violent composite volcano with thick magma which increased the pressure when erupting.
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Eid Mubarak!
Happy Eid to all our families celebrating! We had a lovely day and week celebrating with all our children and adults.
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Spaghetti Bolognese time!
Our first group created their very own authentic traditional bolognese sauce! We have linked our DT unit with our Geography topic of Italy. Super behaviour and sensible cooks.
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Volcanoes!
We have created our volcanoes and painted them. They look amazing! We are going to erupt them this week and see what happens when an active volcano blows. Watch this space…
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Primal Painting
Year 3 used the pigment from different foods and natural resources to paint and mark make.


Bell Beaker Pottery
Super work creating our Bronze Age Bell Beaker pots. We created a similar shape and added patterns to them.


DT – Making our chairs
We had lots of fun using different joining techniques to build our own chairs. Take a look at some of our fantastic structures

Great morning with our Everton project! We made our dough from scratch, cut up our own toppings and created wonderful pizzas!

Today we have baked cakes to help celebrate Maisie’s Birthday ?
Maisie Mouse in our story is having a birthday! ? ? ?
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5EHD DT
We have been working hard on our rail engineering project. Over the past couple of weeks, we have created our own locomotives, complete with a frame, wheels, axels and an electrical circuit.
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Check out our finished chairs!
We made chairs as part of our DT topic on stable structures.
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Teamwork – we started to build our chairs
We worked so well in teams to start to build our chairs in DT


Buzz Buzz
We’ve had a great afternoon making circuits with a light and a buzzer to help us when making our buzz wire game. We also got to have a go at a buzz wire game!
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We had an amazing day on world book day! We focused on #Goldilocks and created our own poems and naughty hashtags.

Supertato’s House
This afternoon we created Supertato’s house using icing sugar and gingerbread. We mixed the icing sugar and water to use as glue to stick the house together.
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We rounded off our ‘My Bnk’ sessions with talking about money habits and the importance of saving! We even made our very own money bank.

We explored how nets can be used to transform into 3D shapes. We practised cutting, folding and gluing tabs to be able to make shell structures.



Tesco trip
To continue learning about chefs, we’re going to become chefs and make our own soup! To prepare for this, we went to Tesco to buy the ingredients we need.
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A happy Diwali from 3TS! We made beautiful lanterns to represent the festival of light.

We loved making models of our homes!
We loved making models of our homes! #smithdowneyfs #smithdowndt
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