As a school, we believe that art is a vital and integral part of children’s education. It provides them with opportunities to develop a range of ways in which they can share and express their individual creativity, whilst learning about and making links with a wide spectrum of different types of art in our society. Art contributes to children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection. Moreover, it enables pupils to develop a natural sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them and therefore links strongly to our school values. The focus is in developing proficiency in drawing, painting, understanding colour and shade and sculpture, with the overall aim of developing a rigorous understanding, critical awareness and inspiration of art and design. We also aim for children to understand local artists and their contribution to wider society.
The art curriculum will develop children’s critical abilities and understanding of their own and others’ cultural heritages through studying a diverse range of male and female artists and designers throughout history.
Children will develop their understanding of the visual language of art with effective teaching and carefully thought out sequences of lessons and experiences. Understanding of the visual elements of art and design (line, tone, texture, colour, pattern, shape, 3D form) will be developed by providing an accessible and engaging curriculum which will enable children to reach their full potential.
Art & Design at Hunton and Arrathorne is celebrated and very much a part of our school life. We teach art skills and progression through ‘Art Weeks’ which take place half-termly. This allows the children to explore the design process thoroughly before creating a final piece of work. To prepare children for this experience, staff have undertaken varied CPD with experts in school to develop the use of sketchbooks and progression in art. As a result, staff’s expertise is strong and children are exposed to an exciting and immersive art curriculum. To assist with our planning, we use the long-term plan and schemes of work from Kapow Art & Design. This means that we can benefit from enhanced subject knowledge and ensure that our planning is progressive, suitable for mixed age and helps children to know and remember more. The seven elements of art, pictured above are key to developing the children’s substantive knowledge in art and design. Although these are not taught discretely, links will be made and common vocabulary will be shared. Art is displayed throughout school. Our sketchbooks, which the children begin in Foundation Stage, follow the children through school and are representative of the children’s journey in art. Photographs of larger, group or 3D pieces are also kept within this book.
Our half-termly art weeks feature a focus on a key art skill and existing pieces of art, sketching aspects of these, with a particular focus on the necessary skills, before completing a final piece. The children will then be given constructive verbal feedback and next steps, with further opportunities to create the art piece, to improve their work and ensure that the skills are being developed. We have chosen for each year group to develop one skill at the same time (i.e. drawing) so children all develop these skills at the same pace and can draw clear links between learning. To enhance children’s cultural capital, we again link our art curriculum to the local area. Children will visit The Baltic Centre & The Angel of the North and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Thorpe Perrow Arboretum. We develop close links with local artists – both professional and amateur. Our ‘artist in residence’ Chris undertakes workshops and after school clubs regularly with pupils.
Within art and design, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning by providing investigative and enquiry-based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning opportunities to help children gain a coherent knowledge of understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the school. Our art and design curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work. Children use sketchbooks to record their progression across units and record key vocabulary and linked media work.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught and throughout lessons.
- Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
- Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.
- Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
- Peer ‘book looks’ after our art weeks to gain an insight into standards across the school.
- Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.
