Design, make and evaluate (KS1 – KS2)

KS1 KS2 D&T

Design, make and evaluate is the backbone of design and technology. It’s the process children follow every time they build anything, and getting it right is what separates a DT lesson from a craft activity. Here’s what the curriculum expects.

What children learn about designing, making and evaluating at KS1 and KS2

What the national curriculum expects

Design, make and evaluate are three of the four strands that make up the design and technology curriculum, and they apply at both key stages. At KS1, pupils should design purposeful, functional, appealing products for themselves and other users based on design criteria, generate and communicate ideas through talking, drawing, templates, mock-ups and technology, select from a range of tools and materials, and evaluate their ideas and products against design criteria. At KS2, pupils should use research and develop their own design criteria, generate ideas communicated through discussion, annotated sketches, cross-sectional and exploded diagrams and computer-aided design, select from a wider range of tools and materials, investigate and analyse existing products, evaluate their work against their own criteria and the views of others, and understand how key events and individuals in design and technology have shaped the world.

Key knowledge and concepts

Within this topic, children build the process that underpins all design and technology:

Deciding what a product needs to do, and for whom

Investigating existing products and what users need

Sketching, discussing, modelling and communicating a design

Drawing a design clearly enough to build from

Choosing what's right for the job, and using it safely

Cutting, shaping, joining and finishing accurately

Testing against the criteria, and asking others what they think

Key events and individuals who shaped design and technology

Where this topic sits within KS1 and KS2

Design, make and evaluate isn’t a unit taught once. It’s the process running through every design and technology project from Year 1 to Year 6, whether the product is a moving picture, a structure, a textile item or a meal.

How to access this topic

Design, make and evaluate don’t sit on their own in the curriculum. The Cornerstones design and technology curriculum is fully sequenced from EYFS through Year 1 to Year 6, so you can see what comes before, what follows and how the whole picture fits together. We’ve done the thinking, so your planning time goes into teaching, not sequencing.

Find out more about the curriculum

Explore the Design and Technology Curriculum

Quick Teach Individual lessons and resources for supplementing what you already teach.