ART
INTENT:
At St Mark’s Primary School, we believe that high-quality Art lessons will inspire children to think innovatively and develop creative understanding. Art and Design is valued as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Our Art curriculum provides children with opportunities to develop their skills using a range of media and materials. Children learn the skills of drawing, painting, collage, textiles and 3D work and are given the opportunity to explore and evaluate different creative ideas. Children will be introduced to a range of works and develop knowledge of the styles and vocabulary used by famous artists, sculptures and designers. The skills they acquire are applied to their cross-curricular topics, allowing children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore topics in greater depth; for example, by sketching historical artefacts in detail, researching geographical locations to support their work on landscape painting or using art as a medium to express emotion and thought to enhance their personal, social and emotional development. It is paramount that artwork be purposeful at St Mark’s; be this as a means of expression or to explore the styles of other artists that inspire our own work. Pupils should be clear what the intended outcomes are and have a means to measure their own work against this.
IMPLEMENTATION:
To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in art and design, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Art and design are taught as part of 3 half termly topics across Key stages 1 and 2, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. Teachers plan lessons for their class using our progression of knowledge and skills document. The progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive from year group to year group. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that children understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists, architects and designers that they are learning about and being inspired by. This enables links to other curriculum areas, including humanities, with children developing a considerable knowledge of individual artists as well as individual works and art movements. A similar focus on skills means that children are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practice and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, collage and sculpture. Children’s knowledge and skills are built upon over a sequence of lessons which lead to a final piece with an evaluation at the end of the topic.
IMPACT:
We strive to ensure that our children's progress within Art is in line with or exceeds their potential when we consider the varied starting points of all our children. We monitor the impact of our Art and Design provision through reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes, a celebration of learning for each unit which demonstrates progression across the school, pupil discussions about their learning, which includes discussion of their thoughts, ideas, processing and evaluations of work, lesson observations and monitoring of Art books. Our intentions are that our Art curriculum will ensure our pupils are academically prepared for life beyond primary school and throughout their educational journey.