Art and Design
Intent:
At St. Mewan art is fully inclusive to every child. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for art and design and provide a broad and balanced curriculum. We will ensure the progressive development of knowledge and skills, enable children to observe and record from first-hand experience and from imagination and develop the children’s competence in controlling materials and tools, to their full potential. It is important that they acquire knowledge and become proficient in various art and design techniques and processes as well as beginning to develop an awareness of the visual and tactile elements including; colour, pattern and texture, line and tone, shape and form. We foster enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts and develop a knowledge of significant artists, craftspeople and designers, by increasing critical awareness of the roles and purposes of art and design in different times and cultures in a cross-curricular approach.
The aims of teaching art and design in our school are:
- 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 so those some pupils may develop aspirations beyond school.
- As pupils progress through school, they should begin 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, behaviours and wealth of our nation.
- To produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences.
- To become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
- To evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design.
- To know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms, including those local to Cornwall.
Implementation:
To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in art and design, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Art and design is taught discretely through the Kapow primary framework, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. At St. Mewan, we ensure that art and design is given the same importance as the core subjects, as we feel this is vital in building the children’s cultural capital.
The art and design curriculum at St Mewan is based upon the National Curriculum, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan lessons for their class using Kapow and our progression of knowledge and skills documents. Teachers can use these documents to plan their art and design lessons suitable to their class’s interests and what they want to learn. However, the foundational skills are taught in the Autumn Term to ensure that these are the priority. The progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive from year group to year group.
When teaching art and design, teachers should follow the children’s interests to ensure their learning is engaging, broad and balanced. A variety of teaching approaches are used based on the teacher’s judgement and the skills required at each key stage.
At St. Mewan we provide a variety of opportunities for art and design learning inside and outside the classroom. Every year we take part in ‘Children’s Art Week’ where each class contributes towards a whole school project.
Educational visits are another opportunity for the teachers to plan for additional art learning outside the classroom. At St Mewan, the children have had many opportunities to experience art and design on educational visits. The children have explored local museums/art galleries and had visitors into school to share art and design learning and have hands on experiences.
Impact:
Within art and design, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning by providing investigative and enquiry-based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning opportunities to help children gain a coherent knowledge of understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the school.
We use Kapow Primary Art and design curriculum because it provides high quality, well thought out lesson plans that are designed to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also forms part of the units of work. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught.
- Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
- Images (and videos) of the children’s practical learning (Class Dojo portfolios)
- Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
- Moderation staff meetings where pupil’s work is scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
- Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.
