Design Technology Curriculum Overview
Design and Technology is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject. It encourages children to solve problems both as individuals and as members of a team. At Emmaville, we encourage children to use their creativity and imagination, to design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other disciplines such as mathematics, science, computing and art. Children will deepen their understanding and independence within all of these subject areas during their Design and Technology lessons. We want the children at Emmaville to develop their imagination, their critical thinking and their understanding of the world around them through their love of Design and Technology. We aim for our children to question and think innovatively about the world around them in order to design and develop their own products with a purpose in mind.
Curriculum Drivers
The School’s Curriculum Drivers are reflected in our Design Technology education:
Learning from the past
Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, children develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world. The children are also given opportunities to reflect upon and evaluate past and present design technology, its uses and its effectiveness and are encouraged to become innovators and risk-takers.
Children will also be encouraged to think critically about their own designs when evaluating their past prototypes. This allows them to build upon their artistic skills and become more resourceful.
Living in the Present
Children are given regular opportunities to develop their understanding of the technological world. We will evaluate past and present design and technology and the ways that these have influenced society today. At Emmaville, we encourage children to make decisions for themselves and by doing practical work it develops a love for creating products they can see, touch and even taste for themselves.
Preparing for the Future
At Emmaville Primary School we aim to provide children with a DT education that is relevant in our rapidly changing world. We want to encourage our children to become independent, creative problem solvers and thinkers as individuals and part of a team.
The children design and create products that consider function and purpose and which are relevant to a range of sectors (for example, the home, school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment). This allows them to reflect on and evaluate past and present technology, its uses and impacts and therefore prepare for the designs of the future.
Celebrating DT at Emmaville
On Friday 27th March 2026, a group of year 6 pupils went to Gateshead College Academy for Sport to take part a tournament as part of the Lego League Challenge. The tournament was made up of a robot mission task, where they had to design code and program a robot to complete as many missions as possible in 2 and a half minutes; two presentations about their robot design and an innovation project for an archaeological issue, as well as being assessed against the core values.
It is the first year that Emmaville has taken part in the competition so we didn't know what to expect. The children have been working hard every week since December in building their robots and creating their presentations. The week of the tournament, they were in during breakfast club, break and lunch times, and really gave their all to their final projects.
For their robot mission, the children had one practice round and then 3 rounds to try and get the highest score possible - only their best score counted to take them through to the next round. At the end of all of the games, North America came in joint 5th place with 150 points, and South America were just ahead with 155. That score was enough to take South America through to the semi-finals. The team they were up against had the highest score of the competition so far; however, we were able to beat them in the game, taking us through to the final. We were then up against a team of much older pupils, and the children did very well (gaining their highest score of the day) but unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough to win, leaving them in second place.
This wasn't all. Both teams were awarded a trophy during the celebration event. South America won an award for the innovation project, where the judges commented on their brilliant presentation and team work. North America were awarded the trophy for Judge's Award, as they had been very motivational to each other - as well as the other teams - and scored highly across the board. There were also workshops from Gateshead College for us to try, including rocket building, lock picking and flying a drone and we all had a fabulous and unforgettable day. I am so proud of all of the children for all of their hard work, and such great success at our first every tournament.
During spring term in South America class, we took part in an engineering competition entitled; 'If you were an engineer what would you do?' where the children had to design a product they would like to create if they became an engineer. I am so thrilled to say that Jasmine's design received a 'Highly Commended' rating! This is a fantastic achievement as 10’s of thousands of pupils submitted into the competition and went through 2 rounds of grading with engineers.
Jasmine and her family celebrated the achievements of the pupils from across the North East during an awards ceremony at University of Sunderland on the 16th May 2024. During the award ceremony the highly commended pupils were presented with a framed certificate and a badge by VIP guests and the winners will be presented with a trophy, certificate, and badge.