Art and Design Curriculum Statement

Intent

At Broad Square Primary School, we value Art and Design as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Using a bespoke scheme, all children will have access to sensory and tactile experiences to bring art to life. We believe that through teaching Art and Design it will provide the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas. Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should 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. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and the wealth of our nation. Children will have access to different themes of art, namely; painting, sculpture, textiles, architecture, collage and printmaking. Drawing skills are interwoven throughout all units to ensure competency.

Implementation

Our topics contain six lessons and are designed to be taught in a specific order, with each year group following the same sequence. Children will follow a cycle of; research, experimentation, planning, creation and evaluation. This enables new skills to be explicitly taught as well as allowing children to explore new concepts creatively in order to learn through experimentation. Children have exposure to classic artists, local artist and BAME artists; highlighting the importance and influence of all art and artists within our whole society.

The Art and Design Curriculum consists of three topics per year for each year group. Clear learning focuses enable children to develop discrete skills during each topic, with key and relevant vocabulary being taught. During each sequence of lessons, children are encouraged to respond verbally to artwork from each artist, annotating their thoughts in their sketch books. Children are encouraged to appraise theirs and others artwork, accepting that opinions of others are perceptive. 

Sketchbooks are a reflection of each child’s journey through the unit, with clear examples of: their own thoughts and feelings towards an artist’s work; how they have been inspired by the artist and their development of a new skill.

As an inclusive school, we strive to ensure that all pupils are able to access a broad and balanced Art curriculum offer. Pupils with SEND are supported within lessons to ensure that a ceiling is not put on their learning. This is achieved through experimentation activities and over learning of vocabulary. Where adaptations are necessary, these are planned carefully by the teacher to ensure that each pupil has rigour within their curriculum.  

Impact

The impact of our Art and Design curriculum is measured through a range of strategies: pupil voice, learning walks, monitoring of books, lesson observations and ongoing teacher assessments. Objectives for each unit are assessed for each pupil by the teacher in order to have a concrete understanding of each child’s artistic abilities. Teachers’s will not only look at the end product, but the skill development from the unit beginning to end. Furthermore, pupils will be assessed on their ability to reflect on their own art work and evaluate the art of others, using correct vocabulary to do this.