Art & Design at St Thomas’
Intent – Our vision for Art & Design
At St Thomas’ we believe that Art and Design is an integral part of every child’s education and have adopted and adapted a curriculum that is engaging, and enriched with activities and opportunities to inspire children to explore their own personal development in creativity. Our aim is for children to develop an open mindedness that will help them to uncover their gifts and talents and a love of the arts.
As part of our broad and balanced curriculum, Art and Design equips children with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design and helps them to develop through self-reflection, resilience and perseverance to produce the best outcomes that they can. It helps children to communicate and express themselves in a non-verbal way, whilst promoting engagement. We are aware that participating in the arts contributes to a child’s mental health and well-being and so all children have the opportunity to be creative and to freely express themselves.
We understand that art makes the world accessible. From inclusion and diversity to exploring and celebrating similarities and differences between peoples, places and cultures and this is something children explore through a range of artists from all around the world and from a range of backgrounds, cultures and heritage. Kapow Primary’s revised Art and Design scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. This scheme supports pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets.
Implementation – How we plan for, and teach Art & Design
The Kapow Art revised scheme of work is designed with five strands that run throughout:
● Generating ideas
● Using sketchbooks
● Making skills, including formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)
● Knowledge of artists
● Evaluating and analysing
Units of lessons are sequential, allowing children to build their skills and knowledge, applying them to a range of outcomes. The formal elements, a key part of the National Curriculum, are also woven throughout units. 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 into four core areas:
● Drawing
● Painting and mixed-media
● Sculpture and 3D
● Craft and design
Our curriculum provides a clear and comprehensive scheme of work that will show progression of skills across all key stages within the strands of Art and Design. Within the curriculum our pupils are introduced to a wide and diverse range of artists, designers and architects, including those famous locally, nationally and internationally; links to other curriculum areas are made where possible. Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into our units, supporting students in learning how to make their own creative choices and decisions, so that their art outcomes, whilst still being knowledge-rich, are unique to the pupil and personal.
During each unit of work a final piece of artwork is produced to be displayed and/or shared. Pupils are encouraged to use their imaginations and use a wide variety of media, developing an awareness of colour, texture, design and dimension. In addition to strategies specific to Art and Design, teachers will incorporate into our learning St Thomas’ ‘Be Statements’: Be Curious, Be Knowledgeable, Be Creative, Be Compassionate, Be Reflective, Be Courageous.
Impact - How we evaluate learning in Art & Design
At St Thomas’ we ensure that the children are involved in any evaluation, dialogue and decision making about the quality of their outcomes and the improvements they need to make. By taking part in our 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.
Children’s progress will be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities and assessment will be undertaken in various forms, including the following:
- Talking to pupils and asking questions
- Discussing pupils’ work with them
- Observing practical tasks and activities
- Pupils’ self-evaluation of their work
Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. An assessment spreadsheet including the learning outcomes for children with secure understanding and those working at greater depth enables teachers to keep records of summative assessments for each child.
After the implementation of Kapow Primary’s Art and design scheme, pupils should leave primary school equipped with a range of techniques and the confidence and creativity to form a strong foundation for their Art and design learning at Key Stage 3 and beyond.