Art

Intent

At St Mary’s  we aim to engage, motivate and inspire pupils to develop a love and understanding of Art and famous artists. Art is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. It is accessible to all and completely subjective so anyone at any level can enjoy Art. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with Art, allowing them to develop their artistic skills through a mastering of techniques. Art teaching at St Mary’s follows the requirements of the National Curriculum for Art; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum. 

We believe that Art is a unique way of communicating, it is a vehicle for personal expression playing an important part in personal and cognitive development. Art at St Mary’s aims to reflect the culture and society that we live in so the teaching and learning of Art enables children to better understand the world they live in.

The aims of our Art curriculum are to develop pupils to:

• Build a portfolio of purposeful work that they can be proud of – this is partly done through Art Journals in Key Stage 2
• Develop an understanding of the importance of Art – how it impacts on many areas of our school development and in the wider world.
• Develop a knowledge and appreciation of famous works of Art and famous Artists
• Develop an understanding of Art history in particular  Art and it’s techniques current and relevant to children today
• A development of the different techniques – painting, drawing, media , collage, printing, 3D and textiles
• Appreciate the talents and opinions of local artists including, importantly our own Resident Artist Mr John Skelding.

 

Implementation:

Our Long Term  Progression Plans enables children to develop new Art skills and concepts whilst also revisiting and embedding established Art skills and concepts. At St Mary’s, we recognise that achieving mastery in Art means gaining both a deeper understanding of Art skills and concepts whilst also learning and appreciating new ideas. Our Progression Plan ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills, knowledge and vocabulary taught are progressive from year group to year group exposing the pupils to fun and engaging activities.

 

Art teaching in Nursery and Reception follows the EYFS Statutory Framework and is taught by experienced class teachers. It is embraced within our holistic teaching.

 

Each unit of Art work has on-going learning objectives which run alongside the Concentric Curriculum subjects that it enhances. For example in Year 5 the History topic of Volcanos and Earthquakes, Art enhances the pupils learning through specific lessons such as exploring the David Hockney painting Red mountain and creating 3D sculptures of Pompei.

 

Impact:

Our Art Curriculum is of the highest quality, planned and delivered  to demonstrate progression,  building on and embedding current skills through engaging and purposeful lessons. Discreet teaching of  vocabulary also forms part of the units of work. If children are achieving the knowledge and skills in lessons, then they are deemed to be making good or better progress. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

 

• Pupil discussions and interviewing the pupils about their learning and their opinions (pupil voice).
• Subject Lead monitoring.
• Annual reporting and tracking of standards across the curriculum.
• Photo evidence and images of the pupils practical learning.
• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes.
• Visual evidence within school as demonstrated by our outstanding displays
• Visual evidence in Key Stage 2 with pupils journals
• Effective use of specialist teaching skills including our Resident artist