Welcome to the Design & Technology Homepage..
Agriculture and Design & Technology
As we have already stated , our vision is for all the school children in the UK to have a basic knowledge of where their food comes from and how it is produced from an early age. As part of this goal we also want them to have an idea of the technology which is employed in producing their food. This is important in relation to
'He who has bread may have troubles.
He who lacks it has only one.'
Old Byzantine proverb
as it is through the application of technology, both old and new, that we can seek to solve both these issues. Some argue that the use of technologies such as: GM Crops, Agrochemicals, Genetic Engineering, can help use feed the world, whilst some cynics may say that it is the very use of this technology which causes many of our problems. Either way it is only by understanding these technologies and the various arguments for and against them that the children of today will be able to solve the problems of tomorrow.
There is no doubt that some of the technology now employed in modern agriculture in the UK is amazing; from laser guided combines and sprays to electronic tagging of livestock. We seek to use some of these here linked to the national curriculum for you to use in your lessons, or for you to use as examples when appropriate.
Our aim is to use the fantastic resource of UK Agriculture and the countryside for teaching of relevant Design & Technology topics. The videos provided are linked to the national curriculum and many lessons have ideas and suggestions to link them to learners 'PERSONAL LEARNING & THINKING SKILLS'
Each lesson has a WALT (What are we learning today) and a WILF (What I'm Looking For) - like below. These are taken from the QCA Schemes of Work which I have used as a common point of reference throughout.
Each lesson also comes with relevant Teaching Notes
Each lesson also has the links to National Curriculum Reference + Curriculum Opportunities