Intent: Why does our Art and Design curriculum looks like this?
At Barley Fields Primary School, we provide a rich, stimulating environment in which we encourage and value creativity. We have designed an Art curriculum which provides high-quality, sequenced and progressive teaching and learning and which includes opportunities for children to develop skills in drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles, 3D work and digital art.
Our curriculum offers children opportunities to study a range of significant artists, architects and designers. It provides children with opportunities to use a wide range of media and allows them to develop a mastery of art and design techniques. Children have opportunities to work alongside professional Artists and engage in a variety of enrichment opportunities. Our staff have high expectations to nurture the next generation of artists and designers.
Implementation: How will we achieve this?
Our children follow a carefully structured Art curriculum which is designed to ensure children know more and remember more as they progress through our school. Art and design is loved by teachers and pupils across school and we have identified specialist teachers and a local artist who enrich the curriculum and support teachers to deliver the best lessons to our pupils. Our curriculum is taught across five skills led strands:
The acquisition of skills and use of techniques in these areas is developed, embedded and applied through thematic topics and links to Artists and Architects. This approach allows children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore Art within a context. Our children have access to high quality art material and resources and the progressive use of sketch books underpins and evidences children’s learning and development .
Visiting experts are employed to enhance the children’s learning experience in Art and the school environment actively promotes the display and celebration of children’s artwork.
Our Teaching Approach
Art is taught in blocks of lessons to ensure children have opportunities for a sustained period of study and have time to embed and enhance their learning. We also regularly enrich our teaching with the support of an Artist in Residence who delivers sustained and specialist art teaching to classes across the academic year. Detailed medium-term planning supports teaching, ensures continuity an carefully plans for progression and depth. The medium-term planning also underpins an appropriate teaching pedagogy for effective quality first teaching in Art. All teaching and learning in Art is designed to be practical and hands on and children have opportunities to use high quality resources and materials to support their learning.
Our children understand the core skills needed to work as an artist with the use of the school curriculum character – Alex the Artist. This character is regularly used to encourage children to reflect on the key skills needed when working within the Art and Design curriculum.
Full deatails of our curriculum long term schemes of learning an curriculum pathways can be downloaded below.
Impact: How will we know that our children are achieving?
By the end of each key stage, chuildren are expected to know, apply and understand the skills and techniques as specified in the Art and Design curriculum plan.
Children are assessed using our SONAR tracking system which identifies clear and progressive end points. This ensures progress is maintained and end of key stage expectations are met by all children. Children are assessed termly and a final summative assessment made at the end of the academic year. Children will be assessed as either Emerging, Developing, Secure or Exceeding, in accordance with Age Related Expectations.
In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes;
- A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school (Curriculum Floor book, Sketch Books and Art Display);
- Pupil discussions about their learning (Pupil Voice);
- The annual tracking of standards across the curriculum. In KS1 and KS2