Subject Leader: Mrs L McGinley

Intent

Heene CE Primary School strives to be an inclusive community where ‘together in faith, we love, grow and learn’. Our art and design curriculum is one of the vehicles through which we demonstrate our vision in action through our core values (respect, curiosity, kindness, resilience, hope and confidence). We aim to provide a high-quality art and design curriculum which together engages, inspires and challenges all of our children.

We respect each child as an individual, therefore our curriculum is designed to provide children of all abilities with the means to develop and extend their practical artistic skills, to build their knowledge of artists, craft makers and designers and to learn how art and design both reflect and shape our history and culture and those of other cultures from countries around the world. Knowing about artists and their great works of art contributes considerably to children developing cultural capital.

We seek to foster in our children an enthusiasm for art and design by appealing to their innate, natural curiosity which we hope they will carry through with them on their educational journey and for the rest of their lives. We aim to create a learning environment based on trust, respect and kindness. Alongside the teaching of art and design we seek to promote spiritual development and moral growth (faith).

We aim for every child to leave Year 6 proficient in skills and knowledge in art and design that can be built upon; firm foundations established for the next stage of learning at secondary level. We encourage all our children to see themselves as artists, developing skills such as perseverance, resilience, confidence, hope focus, communication and collaboration alongside technical skills.

Implementation

The learning organised for children will be carefully planned and sequential which will allow for an accumulation of knowledge and skills and will be ambitious in its intention in order to challenge all pupils. The start of every unit of study will begin by revisiting and making links to prior knowledge with children being supported to recall their previous learning, making links between what has come before and what may come after.

Learning will be supported by Knowledge organisers that each child will have in their sketchbooks and which will be regularly shared with them. The knowledge organisers will list prior knowledge and skills and state clearly the new learning objectives for the unit of study and will also detail what they will have made by the end of it. They will also include key vocabulary and definitions and information about the focus artists and crafts people.   

We aim to provide the children with a real sense of ownership of their sketchbooks and these should be the centre of their creativity. The sketchbooks should reflect the journey of the unit of work with the different stages being clearly visible, leading to an end point.

The children will be encouraged to review and revisit ideas/work in their sketchbooks throughout the unit. The subject specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills will be modelled and reinforced so that the children develop a clear understanding and build upon their prior learning and integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. Study packs will be provided to support teachers in delivering this.

Assessment will be used to ensure key knowledge is embedded and to highlight any gaps which will inform future planning and learning. Assessment will be ongoing throughout a unit of study and at the end; a final short assessment based on the key learning objectives will be completed. The children will answer questions about the artist and their artwork. They will also evaluate their own piece of artwork and compare it to that of the focus artist.

Impact

The impact of our Art curriculum can be seen by the high – quality pieces of artwork that the children have created that meet the learning objectives. Their sketch books capture the development of their knowledge and skills at each different stage in the art unit. It can also be evidenced in the way that they talk about the individual artists, architects and craft people with knowledge and enthusiasm. They are able to evaluate and assess their own artwork and can make links between their art and that of the artists that they have studied. The progression of skills is also evident in the final pieces of art that they produce and in each year group’s sketch books. Its impact is also shown through pupil voice where the children can articulate their growing understanding of theories and techniques, as well as showing their understanding of artists and the cultural development of their art forms.