Over the last two weeks, Year 6 have been working hard in design technology on their survival shelter project, which will culminate with the children building enormous shelters in the Forest School area on Thursday 2nd December.

 The children had a design brief which was: Design and build a strong, weatherproof shelter that can fit at least 4 people inside using a range of tools and materials. There were a lot of aspects the children needed to factor into their design based on the complex design brief. They were informed they would have long willow sticks, long bamboo canes, tarpaulins, camouflage netting, fabric, tape, Para-cord, pegs, tape, wooden pallets, plastic crates and scissors to choose from. From this, the children completed their own success criteria, research on existing designs, plans for two potential designs before evaluating their initial designs and coming up with a final design that they thought would best meet the design brief. 

Once the drawings and initial design was complete, the children gathered sticks and leaves and made small scale models of their shelters with oasis. They had an amazing time and really thought about the way the sticks could be bound together or meet as tripods to best support their structures. The D.T. aspect was certainly not lost in all the fun and creativity! The children are ready now for their final designs, which will be built as part of our I’m A Year 6, Get Me Out Of Here! survival day.