Art and Design

Art and Design in our school makes a significant contribution to the emotional and creative development of our pupils through capturing and extending the children’s individual interest and encouraging their creative ideas.  Through our curriculum and the wider experiences offered, we provide the children with the knowledge they need to understand key artistic concepts, tools and techniques, along with an enriching experience and critical appreciation of the work of a diverse range of art forms and artists.  We encourage children to be reflective and inspired through studying the works of artists from a range of cultures and contexts.  Through their growing knowledge and practical experiences exploring a variety of media, the children develop their creative and aesthetic understanding and have the confidence to have a go, celebrating their achievements.  Our aim is that they learn from and enjoy their own art experiences, take pride in their art journeys and the work of others.  They see themselves as artists!

Our art curriculum is designed with four strands that run throughout. These are:

• Making skills

• Formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)

• Knowledge of artists

• Evaluating

Through our curriculum, these strands are revisited in every unit. In our art and design skills and our formal elements of art units, pupils have the opportunity to learn and practise skills discretely. The knowledge and skills from these units are then applied throughout the other units taught. 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.

Our curriculum develops pupil’s knowledge and understanding of key artists and art movements through the Every picture tells a story units and links to artists through practical work. Our units fully scaffold and support essential and age-appropriate sequenced learning and are flexible enough to be adapted to form cross-curricular links. Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into lessons, supporting children 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 Key Stage 2 pupils using sketchbooks to document their ideas.

Our curriculum is designed in such a way that children are involved in the evaluation, dialogue and decision making about the quality of their outcomes and the improvements they need to make. By taking part in regular discussions and decision-making processes, children will not only know facts and key information about art, but they will be able to talk confidently about their own learning journey, have higher metacognitive skills and have a growing understanding of how to improve.

After the implementation of our Art and Design curriculum, pupils should leave Gorseland equipped with a range of techniques and the confidence and creativity to form a strong foundation for their Art and Design learning at Key Stage 3 and beyond.

The expected impact of our Art and Design curriculum 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 and Design.

Children complete quizzes at the end of the majority of lessons which assess the key knowledge from that lesson as well as prior knowledge from previous lessons. Teachers use the information gathered from these quizzes to address misconceptions and move the children's learning on. At the end of each unit, children complete a quiz which assesses the key knowledge from the whole unit. The children's quiz scores are used alongside teachers' observations of specific art skills to form a termly judgment as to whether each child has met, exceeded or is working towards the expected standard in Art and Design.   

The art subject leader monitor teaching and learning in their subject through observing teaching and learning in lessons, analysing the work produced by children, talking to samples of children in different year groups about what they know and remember from their learning and termly data analysis to track the progress of learning across the school.