D&T issues
Responding to the new D&T Programme of Study - a primary task and a professional designer
Author: David Barlex
How to respond to the new secondary curriculum will be exercising teachers and curriculum developers over the coming months. Here is just one example of how one new feature in design & technology might be developed.
The Curriculum Opportunities section of the new Programme of Study for design & technology states clearly that it is important for students to work with designers and makers where possible to develop an understanding of the product design process.
The Design Council endorses this view in its recent publication High level skills for higher value which is available to download from this web link. In response to the imperative of designers working in schools an important first step is to engage designers in tasks to be tackled by pupils.
Although the new PoS are for Key Stage 3 and 4 the opportunity arose to test this idea with a primary school unit of work and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
The Nuffield Primary Solutions unit Is your creature fierce or friendly? requires pupils in year 6 to explore the creation of little model creatures using small pieces of card and then design and make a full size model creature to welcome visitors to or deter intruders from their classroom.
The tiny model creatures are called skillosaurus (skillie for short) because the pupils learn lots of skills in designing and making them. Teachers have been able to respond positively and effectively to the first part of the task (see this link for some pictures of skillies that have been built by teachers) but, understandably, have been reluctant to tackle the design and construction of a BIG skillie.
So, on August 23 an experienced designer undertook the task of producing a BIG skillie. It was impressed on the designer that he should use construction techniques as similar as possible to those used by children when they design and make a small skillie. In this way it was hoped to establish a strong connection between the preparatory Small Task (designing and making the tiny skillie) and the Big Task (designing and making a large scale guardian or welcomer).
The designer used folded corrugated card squares joined together by paper fasteners to construct the tail, body, neck and head. The underlying trestle structure for the legs and middle back were made from corrugated card held together with gaffer tape. The result was a 3 metre plus ‘brontosaurus-like’ friendly creature as shown here before and after spraying.
The big skillie before and after painting
©The Nuffield Foundation 2003