Art and Design
Curriculum intent
We value art and design as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. We aim to stimulate the children’s curiosity and create rich learning environments, where children are encouraged to enhance their skills learning experiences through expression and exploration. A quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge children, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to think critically, as well as enabling them to reflect on how art and design shapes, and contributes to, our history and culture, and that of others. Art enables children of all abilities to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of visual elements such as colour, texture, form, pattern, line and shape. Our lessons are structured and sequenced in a way which allows children to demonstrate skills in a variety of ways, developing their curiosity and providing them with opportunities to adapt and evaluate their work.
Through art and design at Grange Community Junior School, we will ensure that by the end of year 6 all pupils will:
- be able to follow a journey from initial ideas through to final piece and understand the importance of being evaluative.
- know the elements of art and use these to develop a repertoire of practical skills
- have a greater knowledge of famous artists and designers and their influence on history
Implementation of the curriculum
Our art and design curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum, as well as other experiences and opportunities which best meet the needs of our children. Lessons are planned to enable progression and vocabulary is taught and modelled explicitly. An assessment document for each project is used alongside the progression document in order to ensure that adults make confident judgements. In order for children to progress in each area of Art studied, lessons should be sequenced to allow prior learning to be revisited and revised and help children to build a depth and understanding of the taught skills and knowledge.
Each lesson should have a clear purpose and this should be evident to the children. The children should also be able to explain how this lesson fits with what they already know and where they want to be.
Each unit of art at Grange will use the following cycle to ensure that children build their practical, theoretical and disciplinary knowledge of art:
- Explore – providing opportunities for children to build their theoretical knowledge of art by exploring art history and culture through a range of diverse artworks and artists.
- Experiment – giving children a chance to gain proficiency in different areas of art including practical knowledge of different methods, techniques and styles related to the artworks/artists explored
- Express – providing children with an opportunity to create their own pieces of art, applying the knowledge gained through exploring and experimenting
- Evaluate – encouraging children through each stage to evaluate their own work and that of others, asking the kinds of questions that artists, critics and scholars ask (disciplinary knowledge) and identifying their own next steps.
Impact of the curriculum
The structure of the art curriculum ensures that children are able to develop their knowledge and understanding of the work of artists, craftspeople and designers from a range of times and cultures and apply this knowledge to their own work.
The effective use of sketchbooks means that children are able to review, modify and develop their initial ideas in order to achieve high quality outcomes.
Children learn to understand and apply the key principles of art: colour, texture, form, pattern, line and shape . The opportunity for children to refine and develop their techniques over time is supported by effective lesson sequencing and progression between year groups.
