Art & Design 

The Art and Design Curriculum is covered within the Primary Creative Curriculum umbrella of subjects, following a close theme with the half-term topic. The National Curriculum for Art intends to ensure that all pupils:

• produce creative work, explore their ideas and record their experiences
• become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other areas of craft and design
• evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
• know about great artists and designers, in order to enhance their own practice.

Pupils are provided with opportunities to explore a variety of techniques and samples of artwork, experimenting with a variety of media and equipment to develop their own preferred styles. Exposure to art from a range of cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds is an important aspect of the art curriculum, as is looking at both modern and historical art to observe the shift in how art may be perceived over time.

Intent

Art and Design provides the pupils with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping pupils with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. Our Art curriculum develops creativity, sets challenges, engages and inspires pupils and equips them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. The curriculum has appropriate subject knowledge, skills and understanding to explore and investigate, create and evaluate artwork. It will enable pupils to create art work with a real purpose in terms when displaying and sharing the work pupils have created.

Pupils will develop their understanding of the visual language of art with effective teaching and considered sequences of lessons and experiences. Understanding of the visual elements of art and design (line, tone, texture, colour, pattern, shape, 3D form) will be developed by providing a curriculum which will enable pupils to achieve their full potential.

Implementation

The art skills and knowledge that children will develop are delivered through the design of our creative curriculum, offering the opportunity for purposeful and thematic topic focus to be enhanced. Our approach to the curriculum is designed to allow pupils to build their skills and knowledge whilst applying them to a range of outcomes. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that pupils understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists that they are learning about and being inspired by.  This enables links to other curriculum areas, through the design of the 6 year creative curriculum, with pupils developing a knowledge of individual artists, as well as individual works and art movements.  Our spiral curriculum model means that the pupils are given the opportunity to explore and return to a range the key skills, whilst enhancing their skill set, developing a greater sense of confidence and pride in the artworks they create. Pupils are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practise and develop their skills in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, printing, textiles and sculpture.

Within all lessons, teachers plan a phase of progressive questioning which extends to and promotes the higher order thinking of all learners.  Questions initially focus on the recall or retrieval of knowledge.  Questions then extend to promote application of the knowledge in a new situation and are designed to promote analytical thinking, such as examining something specific. The questions that teachers ask within the same lesson phase, then focus on the children’s own work and how they might change or create an outcome and justify a choice they have made which is based on their evaluation.

Impact

The intended impact of the Art Curriculum is that the pupils are inspired and want to learn more. Their enquiry skills are improved as is their inquisitiveness about the world around them. That pupils can show the progression in their skills, knowledge and understanding in the work in their books and can discuss the learning, remembering what pupils have learnt with the use technical vocabulary with accuracy. Pupils will also be able to identify some key artists and talk about their work. Displays of pupil’s work are in classrooms and around school, celebrating learning and demonstrating progression across the school.

The structure of the art curriculum ensures that pupils are able to develop their knowledge and understanding of the work of artists, craftspeople and designers from a range of times and cultures and apply this knowledge to their own work.  The consistent use of pupils’ sketchbooks means that pupils are able to review, modify and develop their initial ideas in order to achieve high quality outcomes.  Pupils learn to understand and apply the key principles of art: line, tone, texture, shape, form, space, pattern, colour, contrast, composition, proportion and perspective.  The opportunity for pupils to refine and develop their techniques over time is supported by effective lesson sequencing and progression.