The Edward Betham CofE Primary SchoolArt and Design
Intent
At Edward Betham we believe that Art is a vital part of children’s education and has a significant and valuable role in the taught curriculum. It gives our pupils the opportunity to be expressive, imaginative and creative through a variety of non-written media. Every child has the opportunity to develop their skills and explore their individual interests, thoughts and ideas.
Our curriculum in planned to expose our pupils to a variety of art and artists from around the globe. This includes living artists, often working on a smaller more local scale, alongside famous and well-established artists.
Children are encouraged to be unique, take risks and experiment within their work. They will then reflect on the success of certain ideas and techniques within a particular project and consider how they could make changes to improve their work.
Implementation
- In EYFS Art is taught under the specific area of learning called Expressive Arts and Design. There is a weekly art focus which involves a teaching input and various creative challenges are available independently throughout the week. The artwork is added to the children’s Special Books along with their pupil voice.
- In EYFS, the children are exposed to the work of famous artists such as Paul Klee, Alma Thomas, Wassily Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Eduardo Paolozzi and Joan Miro and use these artists as inspiration for their own work.
- Teachers in EYFS plan opportunities for children to explore what happens when they mix colours, experiment to create different textures, develop an understanding that different media can be combined to create new effects and manipulate materials to achieve a planned effect.
- In KS1 and KS2 three Art topics are taught a year covering the following media: sculpture, painting, and drawing with skills progressing and improving every year. Pupils have weekly lessons during these topics to build skills towards a final piece. One Art morning a year covers printing techniques.
- The detailed scheme of work provides comprehensive guidance for the teacher to build the necessary skills with their class and has explicit links to the artists that are referenced within the lessons. Key vocabulary is listed and taught explicitly. Units are planned to build on prior learning so that skills are developed sequentially
- Where possible, Art units are linked to a History/Geography/Science topic that the pupils are studying within their wider curriculum in order to provide further links and enhance their learning
- Every Art unit is structured around SOLO Taxonomy. Pupil outcomes are linked to this success criteria and each child is expected to reach the ‘Relational’ level of learning
- The scheme of work places a significant emphasis on the creative process as much as the final outcome. Children are encouraged to experiment and are expected to produce highly individual pieces. As such the ‘Relational’ level SOLO outcomes might look very different for two pupils achieving this level
- Pupils often have the opportunity to produce an exemplar which they evaluate and think of changes to before their final end piece is created
- Sketchbooks are used to practise key skills and collect ideas. They provide key evidence of the process as they show the decision making that a pupil has taken and the development of techniques
- The subject lead provides ongoing support for teachers. There is an expectation that teachers will seek to develop their own subject knowledge and skills in order to highlight key skills and develop children’s techniques
Impact
Children at Edward Betham enjoy Art and Design. Pupils and staff value Art and Design highly as a key creative outlet and a means of self-expression and enjoyment. As a result of the high quality Art and Design provision, pupils at Edward Betham will develop, improve and embed a range of key artistic skills. The curriculum enables them to develop an awareness of a diverse range of artists, and be able to consider and discuss artworks coherently using technical vocabulary and critical thinking skills. Our pupils are confident to explore, experiment and take risks. They understand the value of the process and the learning journey that they undertake and know how learning from mistakes is an integral part of the creative process. The impact of the curriculum is reviewed regularly by class teachers through ongoing assessment and by the subject leader who plans CPD to develop the subject further. It is expected that the majority of our pupils will meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for Art and Design.
Key Documents
Click on the links below
