Our Design and Technology curriculum provides our pupils with a practical and creative learning experience that enables them to design and make things for a specific purpose. Our aim is to equip our students with lifelong skills that promote problem solving and creativity, which are highly valued in the modern world.

At Nelson, we believe that creativity is essential for problem-solving. We define creativity as ‘the ability to use their imagination with a purpose, applied to a problem’. We encourage our students to use their imagination to solve real-world problems by designing and making useful products that add value to the world. Our curriculum also focuses on instilling eco-friendly habits in our students. We teach children to reuse, recycle and upcycle items to promote responsible citizenship and environmental sustainability.

We understand that academic excellence alone is not enough to prepare our students for the modern world. Employers now require individuals who can think outside the box, innovate and problem-solve. Therefore, we teach our students how to think about the products they design and create and consider the needs of those who will use them. We also emphasize the importance of testing, refining and developing the products that students make to ensure that they work effectively and meet the needs of the end-users.

Furthermore, our Design and Technology curriculum includes the teaching of essential life skills such as cooking and nutrition. Our students learn about nutrition and healthy eating principles, and they are taught how to cook affordably and well. We believe that cooking is an essential life skill that promotes creativity, and instilling a love for cooking in our students will allow them to express their creativity while feeding themselves and others well.

Our curriculum is planned and sequenced to promote the development of skills progressively, from Early Years to Key Stage 2. Our aim is to build on prior learning to develop a range of lifelong skills. For instance, students in Key Stage 1 are taught how to sew to create puppets that they can use in role play. They also learn to reuse plastic bags by creating skipping ropes. In Key Stage 2, our students learn how to upcycle different materials to make coasters out of newspapers, yoyos out of plastic lids and bags and quilts out of old t-shirts.