Design & Technology
Design Technology is taught in year groups 1 to 6 and covers a range of topics, from designing and making pop-up books (Y1) to designing and making slippers (Y6).
We believe that this subject can be a very powerful tool for reinforcing learning in other subjects - for example, children use a whole host of mathematical skills when measuring and cutting wood to make photo frames.
At Gospel Oak we believe passionately in educating children about food, and Design and Technology plays a valuable role in this - each year group has one cooking-related DT topic a year. For example, Year Five bake bread and biscuits and Year One learn about chopping fruit and vegetables.
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designing a caribbean juice on enrichment day |
year five learn to bake bread and biscuits |
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year one design and make homes |
making the eiffel tower |
In addition to our regular curriculum teaching, we also run one-off projects - for example, a Gifted and Talented cohort worked on designs for a system for storing water bottles in the classrooms.
We have strong links with Parliament Hill School which has beacon status for Design Technology. Year Five has the opportunity to work with teachers from Parliament hill school who have been offering their expertise in this subject.
An example of a Design Technology unit
Year five designed and made moulds to go over their coat hooks. They had the opportunity to go to Parliament Hill School to make the final plastic mould.
Most of the lessons took place at Gospel Oak, but the final session was held in one of the workshops at Parliament Hill. The machine you can see being used in some of the photographs is called a vacuuforming machine. This works by heating special sheets of vacuuforming plastic and then forming a vacuum around prepared moulds, which imprints shapes onto the plastic. A vacuum is formed when all the air is removed from a space. Lots of plastics we see and use in every day life are shaped using the vacuuforming process.
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Examples of vacuum formed packaging |
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More examples of vacuum formed packaging |
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Measuring up to make the mould |
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Cutting the wood for the mould |
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Six of the finished moulds showing initials of children |
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Moulds ready on the vacuum forming machine and the tray lowered into position |
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A sheet of red plastic is placed over the moulds |
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The plastic sheet is heated with an electric grill above and the sheet is tested to see if it is flexible enough |
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The tray holding the moulds is raised and a vacuum is introduced to suck the plastic down close onto the moulds |
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Ready to remove the six plastic coat hooks covers |
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The coat hook covers are trimmed to size |
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A hole is punched in the top to go over the coat hooks |
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Can you guess whose this is by the initials? |
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Can you guess whose this is by the initials? |