Art & Design
At Lord Street our Art and Design curriculum is intended to foster creativity, develop artistic skills and nurture deep appreciation for various art forms. It aims to provide pupils with a rich and varied experience, inspiring their imagination, encouraging self-expression, and enabling them to explore and respond to the world around them. This is achieved by exploring all aspects of creativity: personal and social, exploring art for a variety of reasons, in a variety of contexts. Most importantly, it means enjoying the journey, so that pupils want to engage in creative activities, and so that they can grow to appreciate and value the importance of art as a highly subjective and individual experience, but also one which is capable of bringing people together.
Our curriculum is well-designed, coherent, and sequenced to build upon prior knowledge and skills. It provides pupils with different opportunities to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond. This encompasses building up knowledge not only of local artists, designers and craftspeople, but also British and global artists which are considered ‘The Greats’.
The Art and Design curriculum has been designed with the requirements of the national curriculum at the core. The aims of the curriculum are to ensure that all pupils:
- produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences.
- become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.
- evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design.
- know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
In Key Stage 1
Pupils should be taught:
- to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products
- to use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
- to develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
- about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to their own work.
In Key Stage 2
Pupils should be taught:
- to develop their techniques, including their control and their use of materials, with creativity, experimentation and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design.
- to create sketch books to record their observations and use them to review and revisit ideas.
- to improve their mastery of art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpture with a range of materials [for example, pencil, charcoal, paint, clay].
- about great artists, architects and designers in history.
The coverage within our Art and Design curriculum not only supports pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets, but has also been written to fully cover the National Society for Education in Art and Design’s (NSEAD’s) progression competencies. Lessons are planned to balance the two elements of practise and novelty. Pupils have opportunities for repeated practice and consolidation of skills, alongside introductions to new materials and concepts to feed and excite the creative process. By doing this, we aim to build pupil’s cultural capital, which will not only enrich their education while in school, but also themselves as adults as they can appreciate the varied forms of art in the world around us.
Through their engagement with art, our pupils will develop a range of transferable skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication. They will learn to approach challenges with resilience and creativity, and use art as a means of expressing their ideas and emotions. These skills will support their academic achievements across other subjects and equip them with valuable life skills.
Built into the curriculum is the progression of knowledge, skills and language. This takes the form of building up on pupils procedural and conceptual knowledge, through exploring ideas and recording feelings and experiences in response to art. Pupils factual knowledge is also developed through learning about great artists and craft and design, and how artists use the formal elements of art. Through evaluating and analysing their own and others work, pupils develop their meta cognitive knowledge, while vocabulary is continually woven into every lesson.
The Art and Design curriculum attempts to balance a number of important elements, such as:
- Opportunities for new experiences, balanced with time for repeated practice.
- Structured learning, balanced with space for personal exploration.
- The accumulation of technical skills and contextual knowledge, balanced with growing self-awareness of what it is to be a creative being.
Through all of the above, the aim is to enable individual pupils to make appropriate choices regarding materials and processes and to be empowered towards making a personal, creative response. Children also gain the skills enabling them to become well-rounded individuals who appreciate and contribute to the world of art.
Evidence
At Lord Street Primary School, children have the opportunity to record their learning in a variety of ways, which is recorded within art scrapbooks. Evidence of the learning is dependent on the lesson outcome, year group and the skills being developed. This can be in the form of a focused skill being practised or final piece of artwork.
Assessment
Teachers assess children’s learning throughout each lesson to ensure understanding of skills and knowledge before building onto future learning. In addition, children will also complete final pieces of artwork and independent double-page spreads to showcase their understanding of skills, knowledge and vocabulary throughout each unit.
Subject Leaders
Subject leaders will conduct deep dives, which include lesson drop ins, pupil interviews and book looks to measure the impact of our teaching, based on how much children can remember.