Carousel Education provides high quality bespoke support that addresses current educational challenges and practices. Our vision is to enable school leaders and staff to provide the best possible outcomes for all their children. In addition to our resources, we aim to offer down to earth, interactive, innovative and practical solutions for school leaders.
Carousel Education provides high quality bespoke support that addresses current educational challenges and practices. Our vision is to enable school leaders and staff to provide the best possible outcomes for all their children. In addition to our resources, we aim to offer down to earth, interactive, innovative and practical solutions for school leaders.
In this unit of work children design and make a working model of a fairground ride that uses rotational movement and is driven by a pulley system. Applying their understanding of computer programming they use block code to control the movement and functioning of the fairground model. Using their experiences of visiting fairgrounds and theme parks and watching an animation of a theme park, children deepen their understanding of the different movements of fairground rides and how they can be themed as part of the experience. They learn how a pulley and drive belt system works and how they can be used to transfer movement, change the speed and direction of movement. Children design a fairground ride model that uses rotational movement and make a wooden box structure for their model before adding a pulley and drive belt system. They use a Crumble Kit motor as part of an electrical system and apply their knowledge of block coding to control the speed and direction of the motor. Using their designs for guidance, children decorate the fairground model. For the evaluation part of this unit of work children evaluate the overall project and the processes they undertook to create the fairground model.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
Investigate Task 1: Investigating Fairground Rides & Investigate Task 2: Investigating Pulley Systems
Focus Task 1 – Making a Base for the Model
Focus Task 2 – Fairground Ride Designer
Design and Make - Group Designing Session
Design and Make - Making the Model
Evaluation: Evaluating the product, project and processes.
Cereal Snack Bar is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 7-9. The unit focuses on children designing and making healthy cereal bars and also understanding the importance of eating breakfast regularly.
Design Brief: Design and Make a Healthy Cereal Snack Bar
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfills the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
In this unit of work:
Children create their own recipe, branding, and packaging for a cereal bar for a healthy snack. This unit of work also includes learning about the importance of breakfast. Children build on their knowledge of healthy eating and preparing fruit and vegetables to develop their own design for a healthy breakfast cereal bar. As part of their learning they understand the importance of market research and conducting surveys.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
In this unit of work children learn about structures by designing and making a model of a new piece of play equipment for the local playground. They begin by visiting a local playground to look at the different types of playground equipment. their shapes and structures. Whilst at the playground they also focus on different types of movement created by the equipment, particularly linear and rotational movement. Having discussed their favourite playground activities and equipment, they draw a plan of their ideal playground. Children create 2D and 3D structures using drinking straws and pipe cleaners and are taught different ways of making these frame structures stronger, stiffer, and more stable. Using their experience of visiting the playground, children design and make a new piece of play equipment applying different skills and techniques to make the structure strong, stiff and stable.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
Investigate Task 1: Visiting the Local Playground & Focus Task 1: Making Straw Shapes
Investigate Task 2: Playgrounds in Motion
Focus Task 2: Playground Models
Design & Make: Designing Session
Design & Make: Making Session
Evaluating Session
Fashion Waistcoat is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 9-11.
Design Brief: Design and make a Designer Waistcoat for the Class Fashion Show.
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
Materials
Textiles
In this unit of work children become fashion designers. They design and make a themed waistcoat to wear and showcase in the class fashion show. Having learnt the history of waistcoats they take measurements to enable themselves to create their own pattern template for their waistcoat. They use this pattern to cut and assemble the fabric pieces to create the waistcoat. They add buttons and pockets before applying a range of decorative techniques to complete their product. As part of the evaluation, they learn how to become fashion models and apply this skill in the class fashion show.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1 – What is a Waistcoat? & Focused Practical Task 1 – Fashion Designers and Mood Boards
IDEA Task 2 – Down the Catwalk
Focused Practical Task 2 – Making the Waistcoat & Focused Practical Task 3 – Adding Pockets and Buttons (These can be done over two sessions if needed)
Designing: Fashion Designer
Making: Waistcoat Tailor
Evaluation: Fashion Show
Puppets is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 5-7. The unit focuses on creating puppets using textiles and sewing techniques.
Design Brief: Design and make a hand puppet based on a character from a fiction book in the library.
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Materials/Textiles
In this unit of work:
Children make a hand puppet by marking out, cutting, and joining pieces of fabric together to create a character from a story book. Children learn about puppets and discuss what makes a good puppet – this is an introduction to design specifications. They design a hand puppet based on a story book character and learn how to use a simple puppet template pattern to create their puppet. Using their design they decorate their puppet to resemble the book character.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
Seasonal Tarts is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 7-9.
Design Brief: Design and make a seasonal, savoury tart for your school lunch
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfills the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
For this project children design and make a seasonal, savoury tart for their school lunch. This unit develops their cooking skills and introduces the technique of baking using pastry. Children learn about seasonality in food and how different climates across Europe mean that different fruit and vegetables are grown and harvested at different times of the year.
Children learn how to make short crust pastry when they create jam tarts. This provides an opportunity to learn more about how and why foods are preserved. Applying their knowledge of how to create sweet tarts, in the design and make activity children design and make a savoury tart for themselves having considered their favourite fruit and vegetables.
Automaton Toymaker is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 9-11. The unit focuses on designing and making an automaton toy using a cam mechanism.
Design Brief: Design and make an automaton toy for the local toy museum
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Mechanical Systems
• Materials
• Structures
In this project, children apply their knowledge of mechanisms and in particular cam mechanisms, to design and make an automaton toy. They learn about the key features of an automaton and will use this knowledge when designing and making their own product. They learn how cams can change movement in a mechanical system. When creating their toy, they design the automaton character and decide the movement it will make, selecting the appropriate cam mechanism to produce this movement. They make a wooden box structure for their automaton before adding the cam mechanism and the character. Children decorate the automaton to create a scene for the automaton character. They evaluate their finished product against the design brief and design specifications. Finally, they consider improvements they would make to their product and design a Mark II version of their automaton toy.
Design Brief: Design and make a tote bag to encourage people to be more eco-friendly.
Sequence of Learning for Teachers
In this unit of work children design, make and decorate a Tote Bag to encourage people to be more eco-friendly. Children learn about different types of bags and their functions and understand that designers will often design a product that has both function and is fashionable. Children have the opportunity to develop and consolidate their sewing skills and techniques when working with textiles. Each child makes an identical tote bag and through learning about graphic design, will make design decisions around the additional features to add to their tote bag and also about how to decorate their tote bag with a slogan and logo to promote an eco-friendly message.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
Investigate Task 1: Investigating Bags & Focus Task 1 – Fashion Designers and Mood Boards
Investigate Task 2: Newspaper Bag Challenge
Focus Task 2: Making a Tote Bag
Design and Make: Eco-Bag Designer
Design and Make: Adding the decoration.
Evaluation session.
Street Food Fiesta is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 9-11. The unit focuses on designing and making a street food product and developing children’s knowledge of being a young entrepreneur.
Design Brief: To design and make a healthy food product suitable for the Street Food Festival
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
In this unit of work:
Children set up a small food business to create and sell a sweet or savoury food product at the school Street Food Festival. They learn about street food around the world, design their own street food and learn some of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship when creating their own small business.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
In this unit of work children learn how to design and make tortilla wraps as part of a healthy diet. They continue to develop their understanding of healthy eating messaging and the Eatwell Guide and use this knowledge when designing their own healthy lunchtime wrap. They consolidate their knowledge of a range of different food types and know what food group from the Eatwell Guide they belong to. They know that a wrap consists of tortilla bread wrapped around a filling and how to conduct a taste test to evaluate food taste, texture, and appearance. Children learn that food is either grown, reared or caught and apply this learning to different fillings used for lunchtime wraps. As part of their learning, children investigate the information on food labels and packaging as use this knowledge to design packaging for the lunchtime wraps that they have created.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
Investigate Task 1 – Wraps for Lunchtime, Investigate Task 2 – Taste Testing, Investigate Task 3 – Investigating Packaging
Focus Task 1: Making Tortillas & Investigate Task 4: Food Origins
Focus Task 2: Making the Wrap Filling – Making a Tuna Wrap
Design and Make: Designing the Wrap
Design and Make: Making the Wrap
Evaluation Activity – Healthy Lunchbox
In this unit of work children learn about shell structures and how different three-dimensional containers can be joined together to form a desk tidy. Children apply their knowledge of creating shell structures, computer-aided design, and recycling practices to create a desk tidy for themselves to use at home or at school. They learn how papier mâché techniques of adding layers can be used to stiffen and strengthen shell structures. Using a range of recycled materials, children create a desk tidy product and use a range of decorative techniques to create a quality product. Children learn how to use posters and how the functions of products can be used to market and advertise a product.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: What is a Desk Tidy? & Focused Practical Task 1: Making Shell Structures
IDEA Task 2: What are shell structures? & Focused Practical Task 2: Paper Mâché Structures
Focused Practical Task 3: Introducing Computer-Aided Design
Designing Using Computer-Aided Design
Making the Desk Tidy
Evaluation Session
In this unit of work children extend their knowledge of food preparation by designing and making a healthy rainbow salad of five fruits and vegetables. This unit provides an opportunity for children to consolidate their food cutting skills and to extend these skills to include grating and juicing fruit and vegetables. Children begin by taste testing some salads that can be bought in the local supermarket before going on to create their own healthy salad product. They learn the key healthy eating message of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables daily and choosing these from a rainbow of colours. They learn how adding additional ingredients and a dressing can improve the taste of their salads. They complete this project by designing simple packaging and labelling for the rainbow salad product they have made.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: Supermarket Salads
Focused Practical Task 1: Carrot Salad
Focused Practical Task 2: Designing Salads for Your Friends
Designing Salads
Making and Evaluating Salad
Design and Make a Packaging Box for the Salad
In this unit of work children using Crumble Kit components to design and make a night light that is controlled by a microcontroller and is activated when it gets dark.
Children learn about all the different ways in which lights are used in the home and they understand that a product such as a lamp can bee broken down into its component parts. As part of their learning, they re-activate their knowledge of using simple circuits to make a bulb light up. They learn about the purpose of nightlights and about their inventor – Abe Donsky. As part of this learning sequence, children can also learn about Thomas Edision.
Children are then taught about the different components of Crumble Kit and how they are controlled using block coding language. Children then apply they learnt knowledge and understanding to create nightlight that lights up when it gets dark using a light sensor to monitor the environment. The nightlight shade is made of recycled plastic and this needs to be considered when designing the nightlight.
In this unit of work children design and make a fruit smoothie for a friend. Children learn the names of a range of fruit and investigate where fruit can be bought locally. Children learn how to cut and prepare a range of fruits. Through tasting apples, they begin to develop their taste vocabulary. This vocabulary is extended through more taste tests where the children are taught how to cut fruit using the bridge hold and the claw grip. Children are taught key healthy eating messages including eating five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, drinking lots of water and cutting down sugary foods. Having designed and made their fruit smoothie they evaluate their product, and their friend also evaluates the smoothie. As part of the evaluation children begin to investigate food packaging and use this knowledge to design a container for their smoothie.
In this unit of work children design and make a fruit salad based on the story of Handa’s Surprise written by Eileen Browne. Children learn the names of a range of fruit and investigate where fruit can be bought locally. Children learn how to cut and prepare a range of fruits. Through tasting apples, they begin to develop their taste vocabulary. This vocabulary is extended through more taste tests where the children are taught how to cut fruit using the bridge hold and the claw grip. Children are taught key healthy eating messages including eating five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, drinking lots of water and cutting down sugary foods. Having designed and made their fruit salad they evaluate their product and the products of other children repeating using a taste test. As part of the evaluation, they write a letter from Akeyo to Handa thanking her for the gift and saying what they liked about the fruit salad.
Photograph Frames is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 7-9.
Design Brief: Design and make a seasonal, savoury tart for your school lunch
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations.
This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
Materials
Structures
In this unit of work children learn about creating a wooden framework that is used to create a free-standing photograph frame. They investigate how frames are constructed so that they are strong and stable, and the different techniques that allow them to be free-standing. They apply this technical knowledge when designing and making their own wooden photograph frame using the Jinks method. Children learn about ideas of theming and decorating products and apply this knowledge to their own photograph frame.
In this unit children extend their knowledge and understanding of mechanical systems by learning about pneumatic systems. They apply this knowledge to create a rainforest monster toy with a pneumatic moving mouth. They begin by learning about how air creates movement in a pneumatic system. Using this knowledge in a focused practical task, they create a simple pneumatic toy based on the story of the wide mouth frog. They further extend their knowledge of pneumatic systems using connected syringes to understand how pneumatic systems can change the direction and amount of movement in a system. They apply this knowledge to design and make a toy based on a rainforest animal. The toy uses a pneumatic system to control the opening and closing of its mouth.
This webcast focuses on how EYFS can lay the foundations for future learning in design technology
This webcast is part of a series of webcasts written and delivered by Laurence Keel for PrimaryDT that covers design technology in English primary schools. Once complete, these webcasts will cover all aspects of design technology in primary schools. These webcasts are designed to support school leaders, subject leaders and teachers in delivering high quality outcomes for children in this subject. These webcasts can be used for individual professional development or used as part of whole-school professional development in design technology.
Free resources to accompany these webcasts can be downloaded from the PrimaryDT website.
This 3-part webcast focuses on the curriculum in design technology.
This webcast is part of a series of webcasts written and delivered by Laurence Keel for PrimaryDT that covers design technology in English primary schools. Once complete, these webcasts will cover all aspects of design technology in primary schools. These webcasts are designed to support school leaders, subject leaders and teachers in delivering high quality outcomes for children in this subject. These webcasts can be used for individual professional development or used as part of whole-school professional development in design technology.
Free resources to accompany these webcasts can be downloaded from the PrimaryDT website.
This 2-part introductory webcast focuses on the nature of the subject and some of the challenges faced in developing a design technology curriculum.
This webcast is part of a series of webcasts written and delivered by Laurence Keel for PrimaryDT that covers design technology in English primary schools. Once complete, these webcasts will cover all aspects of design technology in primary schools. These webcasts are designed to support school leaders, subject leaders and teachers in delivering high quality outcomes for children in this subject. These webcasts can be used for individual professional development or used as part of whole-school professional development in design technology.
Free resources to accompany these webcasts can be downloaded from the PrimaryDT website.