Our vision for the Art at St. Edward’s Primary School and Nursery is that our children will develop their own creative outlet through a range of artistic experiences. We understand the immense value that having the ability to express themselves creatively provides for their emotional wellbeing and have designed our curriculum in such a way that they can build upon skills, growing in competence and confidence as young artists.
At St Edward’s, children will:
Be taught with the aim to meet the National Curriculum Objectives for their year group.
Gain a toolkit of skills to enable them to express themselves creatively in a range of ways.
Develop a good understanding of different types of art through studying different artists.
Revisit skills at least 2 times throughout their school career in order to build upon and develop these. Using retrieval to remember and consolidate prior learning.
Be immersed in Art so that they are confident and competent at drawing with scale and perspective and are able to represent their imaginative ideas in a physical way.
Feel safe enough to express themselves without judgement or comparison with an understanding that the enjoyment of artwork is subjective and differences in opinion are celebrated when studying art.
Take ownership of their own progression by focusing on self assessment and gaining verbal feedback from their teachers.
As a school, we ensure a range of skills are taught and then built upon later in the children’s school career. The children will work through a range of disciplines: drawing, painting, printing, colour, form and texture in order to explore and build upon a range of elements. Specific skills are mapped and taught at least twice during their time at St Edward’s. This enables children to build upon prior knowledge and progress in ability and understanding of different techniques. An emphasis is placed on the drawing, with each year beginning with a unit solely focused on this, in addition to drawing being an expectation throughout every unit.
The curriculum promotes practical learning which is collated in sketchbooks, large 3D, experimental work is encouraged and photo evidence is collected. Units teach targeted skills in order to build up to a final piece designed and planned by the children. Teacher marking in sketchbooks is discouraged in order to maintain pride and care of children’s creative works. In place of this, teachers:
Make an annual judgement on children’s ability to meet ARE and report this to parents.
Give verbal feedback to progress skills taught in lessons.
Complete each child’s ‘year group cover sheet’, dating and highlighting as objectives are covered and achieved.
When teaching Art, teachers aim to create a safe environment where children feel brave enough to take risks and experiment with their artwork. They recognise that for some children, confidence can be a barrier in art and use drawing exercises and other tools to encourage these children.
Wherever possible, we endeavour to make links with local artists and art events in order to enrich the art curriculum and provide opportunities for those children for whom art is their passion.
It is important in the Early Years to give children a broad, play based experience of Art in a range of contexts, including outdoor play. Children in Early Years settings, experience a wide range of mediums throughout their play including; paint, chalk, moulding materials, junk modelling, pencils, pen etc. Children are given a wide range of choice and begin to make decisions about which tools and materials will create the outcome they desire. They begin to give meaning to their mark making and discuss how it makes them feel or what they intend to represent through their artwork. They also experience more focused and whole class art where specific skills are taught such as cutting, finger-painting, moulding or drawing.
Children take pride in their artwork in the Early Years by displaying their work around the school and discussing it with both adults and peers. They are encouraged to be creative in a range of ways are exposed to local and famous artists from a range of styles. This enables them to become well-informed, confident artists from the very beginning of their school career.
Children are assessed against the national curriculum and skills maps throughout the year. Children’s ability to meet ARE in art is reported through an annual report to parents. Each teacher will refer to the previous year’s report when assessing a child’s current achievement in art and make their own judgement. This assessment is made based on observations of the children’s skills, completed submissions of learning at the end of a unit and a teacher’s overall judgement of a child’s aptitude.
Sketchbooks will show a comprehensive coverage of specific skills and demonstrate progression for individuals and across year groups, demonstrating children’s ability to:
Make progress with skills taught and revisited.
Express themselves in a range of ways and through a range of mediums.
Reflect on their own and others artwork.
| Subject Documents |
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| Art Progression Document |
| Quick Reference Guide Art |