Intent
Our Art curriculum aims to inspire children, help them to see the beauty in the world around them and to help them see that they all have the capacity to create wonderful works of art.
Our children will be encouraged to think innovatively and experiment with different forms of media and materials. They learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles, 3D work and digital art and are supported in exploring and evaluating different creative ideas.
Over their time at St Michael & All Angels we aim to introduce our children to a range of works by famous artists, helping them to develop knowledge of different styles and the technical vocabulary required to talk about their work.
We encourage our children to use this knowledge and the skills they develop to explore their own individual creativity, either expressing themselves using the styles explored or developing their own styles based on their learning. In Art, children are encouraged to take risks and experiment and then reflect and evaluate their work, thinking about how they can make changes and keep improving.
Progression of appropriate subject knowledge, skills and understanding in exploring and investigating, creating and evaluating artwork, as set out in the National Curriculum, will be clear through the school so that children can reach and exceed their potential and make use of art effectively in their everyday lives.
Implementation
Art is one of the main focuses for the Summer term and we have designed a bespoke long term plan which allows us to plan a progression of knowledge and skills across the school. This ensures that by the end of KS2 children have achieved a full coverage of all National Curriculum requirements. During this term children will focus on developing specific skills and explore how these skills can be applied through the use of sketchbooks.
At the start of each unit children will be introduced to a different artist, their works, inspirations and specific styles. As with other areas children will have a knowledge organiser which sets out key information about the artists, their style and any subject-specific vocabulary which has been identified.
Each unit is split into four sections - Take Inspiration, Explore & Learn A Skill, Plan & Do and Finishing Touches. Throughout these four sections the children will begin by learning about a specific artist or artistic movement, they will then move on to exploring and experimenting with the skills used by the artist or in the movement. Following this children will plan out their own piece using the skills they have learnt and create their final piece before moving on to the final stage of adding finishing touches and evaluating their final piece and what they would do differently in the future.
Children will use sketchbooks within this unit where they will have freedom to explore and experiment with the different skills taught in our focused sessions and practise applying them in a range of ways. This gives the children the opportunity to evaluate their use of skills and decide what they like, what they don't and what they want to incorporate into their final piece.
Each of our classes will also have an enquiry question linked with their unit which are designed to be open-ended and to encourage the children to think about their art topic in different ways, for example "Does where we come from influence who we become?". Questions like these are designed to promote discussion and encourage the children to think not only about the art and skills they are learning but also about the artist as a person and what has influenced them in their life.
While art is the main focus of our Summer term we will also incorporate art into other elements of our curriculum to enhance other subjects and make cross curricula links.
Impact
The desired impact of our Art and Design curriculum is to encourage pupils to develop their creativity and imagination, to explore their ideas and communicate them using a variety of media and to be confident enough to express their creativity in their own unique way.
Our curriculum will engage, inspire and challenge pupils. They will gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to feel free to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. Children will be able to speak about a range of artists and artistic movements using technical vocabulary. They will also be able to make links between artists and artistic movements.
We will measure the impact of art through:
- Teacher assessment judgements
- Pupil voice
- Learning walks
- Lesson observations
- Book Scrutinies
In our art lessons some of the things you will see are:
- Children creating and discussing ideas and expressing their own thoughts, feelings and ideas.
- Children developing specific artistic skills and making, creating and exploring with different mediums.
- Children learning to use artistic skills of texture, colour, tone, line and shape.
- Children discussing artists and artistic movements using technical language to make reference to specific skills being used.
- Children evaluating their own and other artists work using technical language.