Intent

At Northbourne CE Primary School we aim to provide an Art and Design Curriculum that builds on a child’s early creative experiences whilst enabling them to express themselves in a practical and inspiring way. Through learning about a wide range of Arts and Crafts, from various cultures, we hope not only to develop the children’s passion and love of the subject but also build a respect, natural inquisitiveness, and appreciation of art in all its forms which they may carry with them throughout their lives. It is our aim that by the time children leave Northbourne they will feel as if they have found an area of the visual arts that is relevant and engaging to them – that might be through drawing, making, designing, or talking about art.

Designed around the idea that art is more than just technical skills, the Access Art Primary Art Curriculum nurtures creative thinking skills and ensures that children learn through art as well as about art. It helps build knowledge and understanding in pupils as to some of the ways that art is relevant in all our lives by encouraging them to explore the ways art connects us with our past and empowers us to shape our future. By combining technical skills with contextual and conceptual understanding, it is our aim to ensure that every pupil feels entitled to embrace their own creativity as something which is important to them, and something which is valued by society.

Implementation

Teachers plan lessons for their class using the Access Art Primary Art Curriculum scheme of work and our school progression of knowledge and skills documents. The progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive from year group to year group. The Access Art curriculum is designed on the basis of pathways with three areas of focus that are studied throughout the school across the year: drawing and sketchbooks, surface, and colour, working in three dimensions. Areas covered include simple printmaking, expressive painting, exploring still life, typography and maps, and fashion design. The pathways follow a repeated rhythm which provide lots of opportunities to balance repeated practice with new experiences. Each pathway provides different options for exploration which ensures that learning remains inspiring and relevant whilst keeping progression intact. Where possible, creative ideas for our art work link to other curriculum areas such as history or geography.

Art and Design is taught on a half termly basis in rotation with Design Technology. Teachers will continue with drawing exercises through the half terms when they are focussing on DT to ensure the continuation of sketchbook and drawing skill development.

Various media types are explored within each unit to give the widest possible range of experiences for all children. The materials and media used are revisited throughout units and year groups to ensure progression of skills previously developed.

The Access Art Primary Art Curriculum is supported by a series of “Talking Points” resources that have been carefully curated to introduce children to a wide variety of artists, designers, and craftspeople from across the world that will underpin the style of art studied. This helps to generate discussions and questioning to inform their own ideas and preferences.

Access Art provided pupil videos created by subject specialists to help children to see art techniques modelled by experts, to ensure the delivery of our art curriculum is of the highest

quality. Each pathway includes multiple teacher videos and resources to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD.

Art learning is recorded in sketchbooks from Y1-Y6 which our children carry with them throughout their journey at Northbourne as a record of their learning and progress in the subject. We know that each child is unique and so each sketchbook should be unique, enabling children to develop their independence and creativity. The children are encouraged to think of their sketchbooks as a place to practice and develop their work. The use of rubbers is discouraged to try and make the sketchbook a place where it is ok to make mistakes and be experimental. Pupils should be aware that their sketchbook does not need to be ‘perfect’ and that it is a working document and collection of ideas.

Assessment of children's learning in Art and Design is an ongoing monitoring of children's understanding, knowledge, and skills by the class teacher, throughout lessons. This assessment is then used to inform differentiation, support and challenge required by the children. End of year assessments are made using assessment criteria that has been developed in line with the National Curriculum or Early Learning Goals. Art and Design is also monitored by the subject leader throughout the year in the form of book monitoring, looking at outcomes and pupil interviews to discuss their learning and understanding and establish the impact of the teaching taking place.

Impact

Through following a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum, it expected that teaching and learning will show progression across all key stages within the strands of Art and Design. It is our aim that children will retain knowledge and skills taught within each unit of work, remember these, and understand how to use and apply these in their own art work, whilst beginning to understand what being an ‘artist’ means.

By the time children leave Northbourne, we want them to have developed a passion for art and creativity, working both independently and collaboratively. They will have grown in confidence when using a range of tools and techniques, becoming artists that can apply the skills and knowledge that they have developed throughout the years and respond critically to their own and other’s work.