Innovations in primary and Key Stage 2/3 design and technology education at the University of Greenwich, London

This paper describes an approach and new techniques trialled with primary and Key Stage 2/3 trainee teachers at the University of Greenwich and further trialled with children. Students were introduced to an aspect of technology, explored its importance and were shown the example they would make later. They then followed a ‘recipe’ to make their working example (or core), gaining knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence. Crucially they then developed a wide variety of different products made manageable by the common start. Benefits of this approach seem to include increased motivation and scope for innovation and differentiation. Electrics and mechanisms are used to illustrate the approach and an innovative technique for constructing mechanisms will be described. Work for children based on this approach is to be found in the author’s Design Challenge series (Evans, 1999). The presentation of this paper is to include working starting points and a five-minute video showing projects.