We began by travelling (virtually!) to Italy 🇮🇹 to learn about the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa 🗼. We discovered how it was built and why it leans. The children were fascinated to find out that the ground underneath the tower is soft, which caused it to tilt over time. We talked about how important strong foundations are when building structures 🏗️.

Next, we became engineers! 👷‍♀️👷‍♂️ We explored different types of joins to find out which ones were the strongest 💪. We tested and compared them carefully, thinking about which would hold our structures together best. We practised making a flange joint and a tab joint, learning how to cut ✂️, fold and fix materials securely.

In the afternoon, we used our new skills to design and build our own structures 🏠🗼. The classroom was full of creativity 🎨, teamwork 🤝 and problem-solving 🧠 as the children constructed their amazing creations. We were so impressed with their resilience and determination to make their structures strong and stable.

Well done, Year 1 Jemison – what brilliant young designers and engineers you are! 🌟👏

We have certainly lived out our curriculum vision statement for Design Technology:

Be innovative. Be hands-on. Be diagnostic.