Art & Design
Intent
At Holy Name, we are situated in the centre of vibrant Manchester. To reflect and celebrate the many rich backgrounds, cultures and experiences, a stimulating, creative and varied bespoke curriculum has been developed in Art at Holy Name.
The scheme we have created is aimed at inspiring children to develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. We want them to learn about art and artists across cultures and through history. Our scheme supports pupils to meet th National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets and has been written to fully cover the National Society for Education in Art and Designs progression competencies.
We teach Art also to support the development our children’s’ spiritual, moral, social, emotional and cultural understanding. We teach Art to our children so that they develop transferable skills to enable them to become aspirational, articulate and confident individuals. The benefits of Art through the curriculum is that it can also support their mental health and emotional skills. According to Dame Benita Refson, President and founder of Place2Be – the children’s’ mental health charity ‘The creative processes involved in Arts help children to work through their problems and find ways of coping’. In collaboration with PHSE, engagement with the arts helps our children develop a sense of their own identity and value. This in turn develops personal responsibility within our school and wider community. Arts and cultural learning promote awareness, empathy and appreciation of difference and diversity and the views of others. Art can also develop Physical health. Fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination skills are developed through drawing, painting, modelling etc.
Implementation
Our curriculum at Holy Name is created to develop creativity, engage, inspire children and equip them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of Art. We use artists that reflect a wide range of genres, skills and mediums. For example, L.S Lowry is studied as he is famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century. Therefore, we are making cross curricular links where possible to present an enriched curriculum. An example of this is during Black History Month when the Caribbean and African cultures of our community can be explored with a focus on Art and design.
Through our bespoke Art curriculum, our children will be encouraged to make links with what they are learning in other subjects. The vocabulary that they use across all subjects will be appropriate to use in Art. They will be developing skills to think critically about images, asking open and closed questions, be given sentence starters “I like the way the artist has…….” “In this artwork, I can see ….”. They will use their knowledge and styles of other artists to experiment with their own work. They will develop the ability to express their feelings. They will use their geographical knowledge of physical features to create landscapes. The children will use their historical skills to create objects from the past and their shape, measures and geometry skills to create their art.
The children will have opportunities to use multi - sensory skills and mediums. For example, in ICT, the children will be using their research skills to create a piece of work through technology.
Our Art scheme of work is designed with five strands that run throughout. These are:
● 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 National curriculum mapping shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.
Our Progression of knowledge and skills shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. Our units fully scaffold and support essential and age appropriate, sequenced learning, and are flexible enough to be adapted to form cross-curricular links with our own school’s curriculum. This is also vital for children with SEN and those disadvantaged. 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.
Lessons are always practical in nature and encourage experimental and exploratory learning with pupils using sketchbooks to document their ideas. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key knowledge and techniques learned, encouraging recall of skills processes, key facts and vocabulary.
Our Scheme supports teachers who may lack confidence in their own artistic abilities. Pupil videos created by subject specialists help pupils to see art techniques modelled by experts, to ensure the delivery of Art in your school is of the highest quality. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Kapow has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full Art and design curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.
Art is timetabled to support each year group and often blends/ shares time slots with other subjects. Each class will tackle a topic at least every term. We aim to cover approximately 20 hrs of Art per year, with Super learning days additionally planned throughout the year.
Impact statement
Our Art curriculum develops creativity, engagement, inspires children and sets them challenges. This will equip them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent, use their imagination and create their own works of Art, design and crafts. The curriculum has appropriate subject knowledge, skills and understanding to explore, investigate, create and evaluate artwork as set out in the National Curriculum. This holistic approach will enable our children to reach and exceed their potential at Holy Name school. In partnership with our local museums, art galleries and Z Arts, we will be enabling our children to create art work with a real purpose when displaying, showcasing and sharing their work. Our children will be making links throughout the curriculum using their prior knowledge, skills, vocabulary and imagination to enable their abilities and creativity to shine. Staff will also develop their CPD working alongside these outside agencies and through the online resources made available to them. We will begin to choose areas of development throughout the whole school and work on these themes through staff meeting, and afternoons specific to Art. Below is the skills process that the staff and children will work upon in the Early years and build up throughout KS1 and KS2. We will continually update resources through communication between the coordinator and staff members.
The expected impact of following our Primary Art scheme of work is that children
will:
★ Produce creative work, exploring and recording their ideas and experiences.
★ Be proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.
★ Evaluate and analyse creative works using subject-specific language.
★ Know about great artists and the historical and cultural development of their art.
★ Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Art.
Early Years Foundation Stage
Pupils explore and use a variety of media and materials through a combination of child initiated and adult directed activities. They have opportunities to learn to:
- Explore the textures, movement, feel and look of different media and materials
- Respond to a range of media and materials, develop their understanding of them in order to manipulate and create different effects.
- Use different media and materials to express their own ideas
- Explore colour and use for a particular purpose
- Develop skills to use simple tools and techniques competently and appropriately
- Select appropriate media and techniques and adapt their work where necessary
Key Stage 1:
- Introduction to the artist/ art form to be studied.
- Learn about the background of the subject
- Use a range of materials and media to develop art and design techniques in the style of the subject studied
- Produce a piece of work in the style of the subject studied
- Evaluate work, making links and comparisons between theirs and the subject studied
- Use sketch books to further develop techniques when no designated topic
Key Stage 2:
- Children should be using their sketch books frequently as a place for them to experiment and try out techniques at any point in the school week. They should be considered an art jotter to be used regularly and by the children’s own initiation so that ideas can be review and revisited.
- Pupils should be taught to develop their techniques through topic work including their control and use of materials – increasingly being able to decide and choose which materials to use to produce a finished piece.
- Pupils will be taught about great artists, architects and designers in history with equal attention being paid to men as well as women artists.
The children are assesed termly via ouir subject specific assement sheets. The teachers will judge whether a child has met the outcomes as laid out on our spreadsheet. This is vital for our subject leader, who will assess progress throughout the school.