Technology Curriculum
Principles and Purpose of our Technology Curriculum
At The Regis School we ensure that Creative Technology enables students to explore design possibilities and that they develop as conscientious designers in the 21st century with a strong moral, social and environmental responsibility. We want them to find solutions for people and the World through creative design.
Students will develop a broad range of knowledge around materials, design intelligence and manufacturing expertise. In each project, students will learn different manufacturing methods and consider the environmental and social impact of these. This enables them to understand the level of influence and or the impact the decisions we make as designers, manufacturers, and consumers, has on the global community.
To enable students to do this we deliver a broad and balanced, knowledge-based Technology curriculum, in Food, Product Design and Textiles. For example, in Year 8 we introduce students to a wider range of materials than they have experienced in Year 7 and teach them how to work with them in different ways, extending their repertoire of both decorative and functional techniques. We encourage students to appreciate how the sources and origins of the materials we work with impact on our environment and society. Whereas, in Year 9 we explore autonomy in decision making, with a focus on professional quality manufacture and finishing.
We build skills with an even distribution of practical and theoretical learning, guiding student progress by posing problems and challenges, reviewing learning with each individual student. We encourage students to apply their own interests and needs. Our students enjoy the practical elements of our curriculum the most but find that the mathematical and scientific elements can place the wider curriculum into an applied context.
The following principles have informed the planning of our Technology curriculum
- Entitlement: Our Technology curriculum covers the aims of the National Curriculum. We have added to the content covered by the National Curriculum, but we have not removed any content specified in the National Curriculum.
- Coherence: We sequence our units to introduce knowledge and new ideas in a way that begins with the simplest and builds to the more complex, including a range of vertical concepts developed over time in a variety of contexts.
- Mastery: Reviewing prior knowledge is threaded throughout all the units we teach, with concepts and skills revisited, built upon, and developed in new contexts.
- Adaptability: Whilst all students study the same ambitious curriculum in Technology, lessons are adapted to ensure learning is maximised for all students in that class. For example, the extent to which tasks are scaffolded or in re-teaching an aspect of knowledge that students have not fully mastered.
- Representation: A diverse range of influences, client needs and references to existing designers are used in resources throughout the curriculum so that students from all backgrounds recognise the relevance of Technology learning.
- Education with character: The Technology curriculum raises several ethical, culturally significant, or sensitive questions which students will want to explore in ways that go beyond the curriculum. We encourage teachers to respond sensitively to these and use their professional judgement to help students to reflect and have informed opinions on these.
For more information regarding the curriculum content, ‘what we teach, why it is taught and when’ please view our curriculum maps below.
To access additional learning resources to support students learning in Technology please refer to Knowledge Organiser (KS3), The Regis SP (KS4) and our primary learning platform Seneca.