Art and Design

Art and Design 
 
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
Thomas Merton
 
Intent: Why we teach your child art and what we teach.
 

We believe that art provides an opportunity to express individuality while deepening and developing skills. It plays a significant and valuable role in both the taught curriculum and the enrichment opportunities we offer our children. Art empowers us to challenge the world we live in and inspires us to communicate our individual ideas, thoughts, and needs. It can uplift, calm, entertain, and educate us.

Our aim is to engage, inspire, and challenge children to express themselves through a range of materials and processes. We want our children to not only acquire the skills needed to experiment and create their own art but also to think critically about art, challenge concepts and examine what art means to them. With effective teaching and carefully planned sequences of lessons and experiences, children will deepen their understanding of the visual language of art.

By focusing on the visual elements of art and design—colour, form, line, pattern, shape, texture and tone—we aim to provide a curriculum that enables children to reach their full potential. By developing a broad knowledge of art and artists, our children will learn how to express opinions about the impact of art and understand how it can reflect and shape our history.

Implementation: What our art curriculum looks like and how we teach it.

The skills and knowledge that children will develop throughout each art topic are mapped across each year group and throughout the school to ensure progression. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that children understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists that they are learning about and being inspired by. 

The United Curriculum for Art provides all children, regardless of their background, with: 

Entitlement:
Regardless of their starting point, the curriculum allows pupils to produce creative work, explore ideas, and develop the confidence to excel in a broad range of artistic techniques while learning about artists and cultures from across history and the world.

Coherence:
Taking the National Curriculum as its foundation, the curriculum is sequenced to gradually build pupils' practical knowledge—including formal elements, the use of various materials, and artistic techniques—while deepening their theoretical and disciplinary understanding across key stages.

Mastery:
All children will be explicitly taught the formal elements—colour, form, line, pattern, shape, texture, and tone—and other aspects of art knowledge in small steps, revisiting and developing their skills with increasing technical proficiency.

Adaptability:
Our art curriculum is designed to give teachers flexibility, allowing them to select and adapt resources to suit their specific context.

Representation:
The art curriculum provides children with opportunities to explore historical and contemporary artists and artworks, representing various cultures, values, beliefs and considering the context in which the art was produced to appreciate the full breadth of human experience and expression.

Education with Character:
We aim to build and maintain pupils’ confidence in their artistic abilities, developing aspects of character such as resilience, confidence, and risk-taking, while providing opportunities to share, reflect, and learn about each other’s experiences and commonalities through the curriculum.

Art is taught in 6-lesson units, once a term. The United Curriculum is sequenced so that meaningful links are made between subjects, and the order of units allows these connections to be made. The United Curriculum for Art & Design has been adapted for Elburton Primary School by considering the context of our pupils and the community. For example: Children learn about local artists and their work, both past and present e.g. Brian Pollard and Barbara Hepworth.

 
Impact: How children show that they know and remember more?
 
Assessing impact means checking how well pupils have learned the required knowledge from the curriculum, not through lots of tests or comparing start and end outcomes. Progress is seen if pupils keep up with a well-sequenced curriculum with built-in progression.

This includes:

Sketchbooks and Pupil-Conferencing
Pupils should use the same sketchbook over multiple years to record their progress. Discussing their sketchbooks helps assess their understanding of practical knowledge and how well they link new content to previous learning.
 
Formative Assessment in Lessons
Use formative assessment opportunities in lesson slides to adapt teaching, address misconceptions, and ensure pupils are keeping up.
 
Low-Stakes Summative Assessment
Use multiple-choice questions or low-stakes quizzes at the end of units to check core knowledge. These should be used to fill gaps and address misconceptions before moving on.

 

How you can help your child at home:

 
EYFS and Key Stage 1
 
 Drawing is accessible and can help you connect with your child and environment. Painting can promote relaxation, so encourage your child to experiment with different colours and mediums, like watercolours, tempera paints, or finger paints. You can also try clay sculpting to explore elements of art like form and texture, or digital art with tablets and drawing software.
 
Make art part of everyday life, incorporate art into family activities and routines. For example, you can try collaborative drawing, like making a large mural together on a wall or large paper. You can also use loose parts to inspire creativity and critical thinking skills. Children can use loose parts to make art, build, or use as props to tell a story.
 
Visit The Box museum, art gallery and archive and learn how Plymouth and the surrounding area has changed over time. Keep up to date with current installations and exhibitions: https://www.theboxplymouth.com
 
Key Stage 2
Discuss art, use open-ended questions to prompt critical thinking when discussing and analysing artworks with your child. You can also introduce famous artists and art movements through books, documentaries, and online resources.
 
Encourage your child to keep a sketch book. Suggest that they take it with them when they go out so that they can look for things to sketch – a tree, a building, a scene. Alternatively, if they see something they would like to draw, take a photo on your phone and let them sketch from it when they are home.
 
Show appreciation for their efforts by displaying their artwork around the home. This can boost their confidence and pride in their work.
 
Introduce them to various art techniques, like shading, perspective, and collage, and encourage them to try these in their own work.
 
Visit The Box museum, art gallery and archive and learn how Plymouth and the surrounding area has changed over time. Keep up to date with current installations and exhibitions: https://www.theboxplymouth.com
 
Read books about art such as:
 
The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas" by Fiona Watt: A comprehensive guide filled with creative projects and techniques that are easy to follow.
 
"Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media" by Susan Schwake: Offers a variety of fun and engaging art projects with step-by-step instructions.
 
"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards: A classic book that helps develop drawing skills through exercises that enhance the right side of the brain.