Art
Art at Overleigh St Mary’s C of E Primary School
Intent
Through our Art curriculum, we strive to engage, inspire and challenge pupils. We equip them with the knowledge and skills to produce creative work across a range of media and genres. This is achieved through our well-designed, sequential and inclusive curriculum which ensures all children, including children with SEND, Pupil Premium, EAL and other vulnerable groups, have the opportunity to develop their own artistic excellence. Children are taught about significant artists, craftspeople and designers and become more critically aware of the roles and purposes of art and design in different times and cultures.
Informed
- Children learn about great artists and designers from different historical periods and cultures.
- Children develop the knowledge and skills to produce creative work across a range of media and genres.
- Children have real practical experiences and learn about art in an active and creative way.
Articulate
- Through the teaching of subject specific technical vocabulary and opportunities to discuss works of art children develop their ability to think critically, evaluate and develop their understanding of art and design.
Empowered
- Works and artists covered reflect the diversity of our community enabling pupils to see themselves within the art curriculum. This supports their belief that they too can be great artists or designers.
- The focus on having a growth mind-set is essential in the teaching of art empowering children with the confidence to have a go, to learn from mistakes and to keep trying and improving.
- An appreciation of the arts is essential to fully engaging in a rich cultural life.
- All children including those who have SEND or are disadvantaged are supported to fully access the art curriculum. This may include additional adult support, adapted resources or the use of visual supports. Structured sentence stems and taught vocabulary scaffold children in discussion.
Through our Art curriculum, we strive to engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. Through the teaching of Art, we endeavour to provide children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas. Children are taught to be able to think creatively and critically. They investigate and evaluate a wide range of creative outcomes, from the past and present to develop vigorous understanding of the many disciplines within art craft and design and how they shape our history and future. Children begin to develop an awareness of the visual and tactile elements including; colour, pattern and texture, line and tone, shape, form and space, foster enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts and develop a knowledge of significant artists, craftspeople and designers, increase critical awareness of the roles and purposes of art and design in different times and cultures and analyse works using the language of art and design.
At Overleigh, we are guided by the National Curriculum for Art (2014). The National Curriculum for Art aims to ensure that all pupils:
- produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, printing and textiles
- 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.
We intend for our children to have real practical experiences and learn about Art in an active and creative way and therefore visitors, trips and cross-curricular links form a fundamental part of our curriculum.
Implementation
Our Art curriculum provides a clear and comprehensive scheme of work that will show progression of skills across all key stages within the strands of Art. The skills and knowledge that children will develop throughout each art topic are mapped across each year group and are progressive throughout the school. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that children understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists and Art movements that they are learning about and being inspired by. This enables links to other curriculum areas with children developing a considerable knowledge of individual artists, as well as individual works and art movements. A similar systematic approach to the development of artistic skills means that children are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practise and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, collage, printing, textiles and sculpture. All children including those with SEND and other vulnerable groups will have access to the full breadth of the curriculum with work being adapted through the adaption of materials and manipulatives used, or expected work outcomes, made by the class teacher.
In Key Stage 2, children will have a sketch book. Along with children’s artwork, the sketchbook can provide a record of the children’s learning and progress in Art at school.
We implement our curriculum using planning that prioritises knowledge and understanding of a variety of male and female artists and art movements from difficult countries and cultures throughout history.
Impact
Our Art Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to ensure progression. Our teachers measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- A knowledge check at the beginning of each unit to see what the children already know
- Link each of our core strands to previous learning, to compare and contrast and to review understanding
- Start lessons with a recap of key knowledge and understanding from the previous session
- Provide opportunities each lesson to use the key vocabulary
- Assess children at the end of the unit against key knowledge and learning
The leadership team check that this impact is being secured through monitoring the subject on a regular and frequent basis. The method of monitoring supports the ongoing development of the curriculum. This includes:
- Staff subject knowledge, which is audited each year to ensure knowledge is secure, and additional support provided if necessary
- Termly staff meetings to discuss and evaluate the effectiveness of topics with the subject leaders. From this, medium term planning is amended and adapted to ensure the curriculum remains relevant for the children
- A ‘pupil voice’, which is conducted at the beginning and end of each year to allow pupils to contribute to their curriculum content
- Bi-termly monitoring of work against the medium-term plans, so that inconsistencies can be addressed
- Tracking of content against the long-term plan of the school, to ensure the full breadth of the curriculum is met.
The impact of this is to ensure that children at Overleigh are equipped with artistic skills and knowledge,
- build the skills needed to produce their own works across a range of styles and media.
- are equipped with the knowledge base to express informed opinions, make connections and have a developing knowledge of artists from different periods.
- that enables them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world.