Art & Design

St. Edmund’s Catholic Primary School

Art & Design Intent Document

Intent

At St Edmund’s Catholic Primary School, we are ARTISTS! We want our children to be passionate about Art and to explore the impact creativity has had on both the past and modern world. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and hope to inspire children to think creatively, uniquely and purposefully in order to create their own pieces of artwork. We recognise the key role that Art plays in equipping our children with skills that they can use for life, allowing them to think critically while also developing their own creative skills that they will be able to call upon throughout their lives. We hope to inspire and motivate our learners to think outside the box and to take safe risks in order to achieve greatness. At St Edmund’s, we believe the next big masterpiece will come from Skelmersdale!

Our curriculum document enables children to develop their interest, knowledge and understanding of Art through the reoccurring strands of: drawing, painting, collage, 3D, textiles, printing and digital media. The disciplinary knowledge is developed from EYFS through to Year Six, through the age-related skills taught through our sequence of; appraise it, draw it, paint it and make it.

The children will develop their Art knowledge, by exploring existing artwork, researching significant artists, taking part in educational visits or visitor workshops and using a variety of different interactive and creative resources.

Implementation

Each unit is built around a specifically selected artistic brief and the strand of Art; both of which are interlinked to help promote cohesion within the curriculum. The unit begins with an appraisal session, where the children will explore their focus artist and the work best associated with them. From doing this, the children will use open questions to critically analyse the artist in question.

During the next phase, the children will begin to develop their drawing skills through the explicit teaching of drawing. The children will use a variety of different media to explore mark-making as well as making different tones, textures and colours. Children will use the focus artist to inspire their own hand draw pieces.

Throughout the painting phase, the children will explore the variety of different painting skills highlighted in the progression document. Painting skills are taught progressively across all classes e.g. in KS1 children will be exploring mixing colours, while in UKS2 children may begin to use colour gradients or washes to enhance their work. We teach our children in mixed-aged classes’ therefore; substantive knowledge will be taught over two cycles (A&B). The disciplinary knowledge is age-related so that all children can develop their Art skills in a linear progression.

During the making phase, children will explore creating a unique final piece using a focus media; printing, collage, 3D or textiles. The children will think critically and creatively and look back at the whole process as one long journey, in order to make a bespoke final outcome. Throughout all phases, children will regularly revisit the focus artist and brief, whilst also being given time to reflect on their learning.

Impact

Our Art curriculum offers high-quality and well-planned lessons, which encourages progression. Key vocabulary is embedded in each lesson. Continuity and progression in the curriculum are built around substantive and disciplinary knowledge within Art. These are broken into year-group expectations.

In order to ensure our aims have been met, we scrutinise learning through:

•   Assessing children’s understanding of the topic including linked vocabulary throughout the unit through using reflective questioning.
•   Talking to children during the lesson to ensure they have understood the learning objective – Assessment for learning.
•   Mark completed work – Assessment for learning

The above enables the teacher to make an informed judgement on the children’s understanding and record their designer ability on the school tracking tool ‘itrack’.