Art and Design

Hello, I am Mrs Townson and I lead the Art curriculum at Brookfield Primary School. I studied Art up to GCSE level at secondary school and then went on to achieve an A Level in Textiles. I love looking at art, especially modern art and pieces that make you question the motives behind pieces such as Banksy.

Art and Design Intent

Intent

Our Art and Design curriculum aims to 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

The national curriculum for Art and Design aims 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.

We aim to motivate and inspire children through a curriculum that stimulates, engages and challenges all learners. Our curriculum aims to develop their artistic ability, nurture their talent and interests and express their ideas and thoughts about the world. For them to learn about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond.

Art at Brookfield is designed to teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in a creative process. Skills are taught sequentially across the key stages and new skills build on and develop the skills taught in previous year groups.

Specific vocabulary for each area of art is taught and built upon and effective questioning to communicate ideas is encouraged.

Our School Mission Statement of ‘Many hearts make a school’ and our Learning Powers, are at the heart of our curriculum and all that we do at Brookfield Community Primary School.

Implementation

In Art and Design, we implement an inclusive curriculum that meets the needs of all pupils including those with special educational needs and the more able.

The curriculum is progressive and based on the needs of our children. Formal art skills are built into lessons, in order to embed these skills.

At the beginning of each unit, children share their prior knowledge, which informs planning and teaching. A series of stimulating lessons are planned, with clear knowledge and skills -based learning objectives and subject-specific vocabulary, which is included on the termly knowledge organisers. These lessons are sequential, allowing the children to build their skills and knowledge, applying them to a range of outcomes. Key skills are revisited again and again with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model. This allows pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Units in each year group are organised in to four core areas:

Drawing
Painting and Mixed-Media
Sculpture and 3D
Craft and Design

Our progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

Lessons are always practical in nature and encourage experimental and exploratory learning with pupils using sketchbooks to document their ideas. The knowledge organisers support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key knowledge and techniques learned, encouraging recall of skills processes, key facts and vocabulary.

Our curriculum is delivered through highly effective ‘quality first teaching’ as described in the Teaching and Learning Policy. Enrichment opportunities, including inspirational visitors and exciting educational visits, provide our children with rich experiences and enhance teaching, learning and knowledge.

Impact

Our well-planned Art and Design curriculum ensures that children are given essential knowledge and skills.

All pupils’ learning is progressive, developmental and stimulating. Teaching ensures that children develop learning powers enabling each one to be the best they can be.

At the end of each year the children will have been exposed to a wide variety of different media, giving them the opportunity to use it in a different way or for a different purpose and develop a range of skills. This will build upon their prior knowledge of what they can do when using this media. Our lessons are accessible for all of our pupils and they are proud of what they have achieved. They will be able to look back at their earliest work in their sketch books and see the progress they have made.

Our approach of being open and accepting of mistakes will not only help to develop our children’s creativity within Art but will extend to other areas of their lives. There are many key life skills that will be developed through our attitude and teaching of Art which will support our children as they move on after Brookfield, such as respecting others and their work even if we don’t like it personally, or carrying on after something goes wrong or when things do not turn out how we planned. This resilience is a key skill which our children will need throughout their lives.

Our curriculum is designed in such a way that children are involved in the evaluation, dialogue and decision making about the quality of their outcomes and improvements they need to make. By taking part in regular discussions and decision-making processes, children will not only know facts and key information about art, but they will be able to talk confidently about their own learning journey, have higher metacognitive skills and have a growing understanding of how to improve.