Art
Intent
At St Mary’s CE Primary School we aim to inspire all pupils to produce creative and imaginative work, expressing themselves and providing opportunities to explore their ideas and record their experiences. Through learning about a wide range of arts and crafts, we aim to not only develop children’s passion and love of the subject, but also build a respect and natural inquisitiveness and appreciation of art in all of its forms. Children will become confident and proficient in a variety of techniques including drawing, painting, sculpting, as well as other selected craft skills, e.g. collage, printing, weaving and patterns. Children will also develop their knowledge of famous artists, designers and craft makers. The lessons will offer the chance for children to develop their emotional expression through art to further enhance their personal, social and emotional development.
Implementation
The national curriculum for art and design aims to ensure that all pupils:
- produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
- evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
- know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms
At St Mary’s CE Primary School our planned Art and design curriculum has a clear progression of skills and knowledge within these four strands across each year group. Our progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills taught within each year group and how these develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. Our whole school Art and design curriculum document shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.
Art is taught each term, in rotation with Design Technology following a two-year cycle of units of study. Learning is built through weaving, layering and revisiting of experiences, so children’s understanding grows. Our art curriculum allows children to encounter difference experiences, through media, techniques, approaches and artists, which are all underpinned by the creative use of drawing and sketchbooks.
To ensure our curriculum is taught to develop cumulatively sufficient knowledge by the end of each Key Stage we follow the stages outlined below:
1.) Substantive knowledge for each subject is mapped from EYFS to Year 6 to ensure our children learn cumulatively sufficient knowledge by the end of each Key Stage.
2.) Disciplinary knowledge as geographical skills and fieldwork is mapped from EYFS to Year 6 to enable children to apply their knowledge as skills.
3.) Explicit teaching of vocabulary is central to children’s ability to connect new knowledge with prior learning. Teaching identifies Tier 2 words, high frequency words used across content e.g. verify, and Tier 3 words, specific to subject domains e.g. biome
4.) Spaced retrieval practice, through questioning, quizzes and peer-explanations, further consolidates the transfer of information from working memory to long-term memory. Quizzing etc. are primarily learning strategies to improve retrieval practice – the bringing of information to mind.
5.) The use of knowledge organisers and knowledge notes for some subjects keeps essential information together to guard against split-attention effect. Children are taught to forge connections between their current learning and the ‘big picture’ of subject content.
Our Early Years Curriculum is carefully planned and implemented to enable children to achieve the Early Learning Goals (ELGs). Through the ELGs for Expressive Art and Design children will learn to safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function. They will be able to share their creation, explaining the processes they have used.
Additional enrichment opportunities, such as taking part in the National Big Draw and exhibiting their art work both inside and outside of school, continues to support children as viewing themselves as artists.
Impact
Our Art and Design curriculum ensures that children leave St Mary’s with a range of embedded artistic skills and knowledge. They will have an awareness of a diverse range of artists and craftspeople, and be articulate and confident in articulating their artistic view points. They will be able to experiment and take risks, placing value on the process and journey they have taken, not just the finished outcome. Most importantly we want children to have enjoyed this highly creative outlet as a means of both self-expression and creativity.
