Intent

At Barwic Parade, we recognise that Art and Design stimulates creativity, imagination and independence. It provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a special way of understanding and responding to the world. It enables children of all abilities to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of the 7 Elements of Art and a wide range of processes and resources. We aim to encourage all children to be expressive and develop a curiosity for visually capturing and representing the world around them.

Our curriculum aims to give all children key skills in drawing, painting, collage, 3D sculpture, printing and, in order to support children in a technological world; digital media. We aim to encourage pupils at Barwic Parade to explore and experiment with the skills they are taught in new and innovative ways to create unique and personal art works.

Throughout their time at Barwic Parade, we want children to appreciate and evaluate the works of many great artists, designers, craft makers and movements, drawing on them for inspiration. We want children to deepen their learning through maximising opportunities for discussion and exploration of famous artworks and techniques, knowing and accepting that art is subjective. We aim to challenge the children’s preconceptions of art and expose them to the many ways in which art and design skills can be utilised in their future paths.

Our aim is to provide a curriculum that gives the arts the prominence it deserves and is instrumental in fostering transferable skills such as creativity, problem solving, analysing and communicating as well developing independence, confidence, well-being and self-esteem.

Characteristics of an artist

• The ability to use visual language skilfully and convincingly (for example, line, shape, pattern, colour, texture, form) to express emotions, interpret observations, convey insights and accentuate their individuality.
• The ability to express ideas in visual and tactile form.
• The ability to draw confidently and adventurously from observation, memory and imagination.
• The ability to explore and invent marks, develop and deconstruct ideas and communicate perceptively and powerfully through purposeful drawing in 2D, 3D or digital media.
• An impressive knowledge and understanding of other artists, craft makers and designers.
• The ability to think and act like creative practitioners by using their knowledge and understanding to inform, inspire and interpret ideas, observations and feelings.
• Independence, initiative and originality which they can use to develop their creativity.
• The ability to select and use materials, processes and techniques skilfully and inventively to realise intentions and capitalise on the unexpected.
• The ability to reflect on, analyse and critically evaluate their own work and that of others.
• A passion for and a commitment to the subject.

Implementation

Art is taught in half termly blocks in hour-long sessions and is done as part of our mixed-age curriculum. Our curriculum is bespoke to our school and children’s needs whilst enabling all children to meet National Curriculum objectives. The bespoke curriculum makes cross-curricular links to our history and geography units, encouraging children to apply specific subject knowledge to their art works.

  Our curriculum is structured in such a way that children are taught and explore key skills in discreet lessons before applying them to a project or final pieces in the latter half of the unit. Through using this approach, children have the opportunity to practise skills, experiment with resources and evaluate their ideas, enabling children be more skilful and knowledgeable when creating their independent pieces.

  In each lesson, all children will be introduced to and encouraged to discuss and critically analyse famous artists, their work and the movements they were a part of. Children in the EYFS will explore artists with a focus on colour, shape and pattern; children in KS1 will look at famous artists, movements and artworks that link to their unit; LKS2 children will continue to look at artists linking to their unit whilst studying the work of the Old Masters and new movements and UKS2 children will begin to look at artists in less obvious art careers such as interior design, architecture and web/game developers.

  Children will be taught key vocabulary in practical ways and encouraged to use this when discussing and evaluating artworks. Unit specific language progresses and is built on as the children move through the school, where the vocabulary surrounding the 7 Elements of Art will be discussed in every lesson.

  The progression of the art curriculum is mapped through school from EYFS to year 6, detailing the progression of knowledge, skills and vocabulary. In the early years, children explore colour and shape though a range of structured and unstructured activities; in KS1 the children begin to learn and understand the skills in each of the 6 key areas and in LKS2, the children build on these skills and apply them in more challenging and skilful ways. Children in year 5 and 6 build upon their previous skills and knowledge though more sustained and independent projects. The children are encouraged to draw upon all they have learnt in previous years to research, plan and create unique pieces of art.

  Sketchbooks are a fundamental element of implementing our art curriculum. The children will use these to explore ideas, create mood boards and carry out research, analyse famous art works, complete independent works and evaluate them. These sketchbooks will be started in year 1 and will travel with the children as they progress though school. Sketchbooks are available in every lesson for children to practise or explore an idea and to revisit and review previous work, knowledge and skills. The children at Barwic Parade understand the importance of their sketchbooks and know that they are personal. Teachers at Barwic Parade use their own sketchbooks to model and share ideas and know that they are not to make marks or comments directly into someone else’s book.

  In addition to discreet art lessons, the children will apply their knowledge and skills to other areas of the curriculum such as scientific and detailed sketches in science, product design in D&T, creating illustrations for English work and work around festivals and holidays.

Below is an extract from our curriculum documents which underpin the long term planning. This example is taken from year 3/4 spring term:

Impact

Our art curriculum is planned to demonstrate progression and to stimulate creativity. Pupils are clear about what the intended outcomes are and have a means to measure their own work against this, as a means of expression or to explore the styles of other artists that inspire our own work. In art, children are reflective and evaluate their own and each other’s work, thinking about how they can make changes to keep improving. This is meaningful and continuous throughout the process, with evidence of age-related verbal and written reflection.

We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form 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.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Moderation where pupil’s sketch books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
• Otrack is used to monitor attainment of key skills and knowledge