Design & Technology Curriculum

Overview

At Rathfern Primary School, our Design & Technology (D&T) curriculum nurtures curiosity, creativity, resilience, and collaboration which underpin everything we do. Using the Kapow Primary scheme, our pupils engage in a rich, hands-on curriculum that develops practical skills, creativity, and critical thinking through designing, making, and evaluating purposeful products.

Our curriculum ensures every child can see themselves as a designer, innovator, and problem-solver, with learning experiences that reflect real-world contexts and global sustainability. The Kapow Primary scheme supports this by providing a spiral curriculum that revisits and deepens knowledge and skills over time, ensuring progression and mastery from EYFS to Year 6.

Using the inclusive Kapow Primary scheme, celebrates diverse design traditions and food cultures where our children learn to design with empathy and respect, broadening their perspectives and deepening appreciation for our rich, global culture.

Intent

At Rathfern, we believe Design and Technology matters because it connects imagination with practical application.

Through D&T, including Textiles and Food & Nutrition, children learn to:

Design innovative solutions for authentic problems.
Make products using a range of materials, tools, and techniques.
Evaluate their own work and the work of others to improve outcomes.
Understand how design impacts society, culture, and the environment.

Our intent is to empower children to become creative and innovative thinkers who are resilient and reflective. By exploring textiles and food, where children develop the confidence to take risks, work collaboratively, and learn from mistakes. This supports our learners to become resourceful, enterprising individuals who will learn the skills to contribute and improve the world around them.

At Rathfern, we follow Kapow Primary’s four strands of: Design, Make, Evaluate, and Technical Knowledge. Our intent ensures a balanced and coherent development of knowledge and skills.

These strands enable children to:

Design: Generate and communicate imaginative ideas that meet real-world needs.

Make: Apply practical skills to construct high-quality, functional products.

Evaluate: Reflect critically on their own work and that of others to improve designs.

Develop Technical Knowledge: Understand how products work, including material properties, mechanisms, electrical systems, and nutrition

In line with Rathfern’s school values of Respect, Responsibility, Resilience, and Reflection,

We aim for pupils to:

• Respect the process of design and the ideas of others.
• Take responsibility for safety, sustainability, and ethical design.
• Show resilience through iterative design and problem-solving.
• Reflect on how design influences and improves lives.

At Rathfern, our intent with Kapow is to promote sustainability, critical thinking, and oracy, encouraging children to discuss, debate, and justify their design decisions. Through this approach, pupils develop an understanding of the environmental and ethical impact of the products they create, aligning with Rathfern’s wider commitment to responsible and reflective learning.

Implementation

We follow the Kapow Primary Design and Technology scheme, which provides a clear, spiral progression of knowledge and skills from EYFS to Year 6. Each unit builds upon prior learning, allowing pupils to revisit core skills and concepts with increasing depth and complexity.

Spiral Curriculum

Kapow Primary’s D&T scheme of work has been designed as a spiral curriculum with the following key principles in mind:

Cyclical – pupils return to the key knowledge and skills again and again during their time in primary school.
Increasing depth – each time a skill is revisited, it is covered with greater complexity.
Prior knowledge – pupils build upon previous foundations rather than starting again.

Curriculum Progression

The Kapow Primary spiral curriculum ensures pupils build on previous knowledge through cyclical revisiting of skills:

Cyclical: Pupils revisit key skills and concepts over time.
Increasing depth: Each revisit introduces greater complexity and independence.
Building on prior knowledge: Pupils connect previous learning to new challenges, supporting retention and mastery.

Assessment

Assessment is ongoing through teacher observation, peer and self-evaluation, and reflection against clear success criteria. Children demonstrate substantive knowledge (factual understanding), disciplinary knowledge (thinking like a designer), and procedural knowledge (practical skills).

Impact

The impact of our Design and Technology (D&T) curriculum is evident in children who:

Think critically and creatively to solve problems.
Demonstrate clear and sustained progression in their design, making, and evaluation skills.
Use technical vocabulary accurately and with confidence.
Show an understanding of sustainability, cultural diversity, and ethical design principles.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through:

Pupil voice: Pupils articulate their design thinking, decision-making processes, and pride in their outcomes.
Photographic evidence: Displays, D&T books, and digital galleries that showcase learning journeys and finished work.
Final products: High-quality outcomes that reflect originality, precision, and care.
Teacher assessment: Ongoing evaluation using Kapow’s progression framework to ensure consistent development and achievement.

Curriculum Map

Our D&T Curriculum Map (EYFS–Year 6) outlines yearly units covering:

Textiles
Cooking & Nutrition

This ensures clear progression and full coverage of national curriculum objectives while following Kapow Primary’s carefully sequenced learning journey.

DT & Cooking Nutrition Curriculum Development

curriculum development 2025 2026.pdf