Intent: This is what we want for your child.
At Barley Fields Primary, we believe that art is a vital part our children’s educational experience. Creativity takes courage and we are a school that values creativity. Art provides children with opportunities to explore, experiment and play and therefore develop in a range of ways in which they can share and express their individual personalities.
We aim for our children to be fearless, authentic and present so they can communicate their feelings and ideas through self-expression and personal interpretation. We encourage our children to express themselves and we believe that art is an effective and holistic way of achieving this. We want our children to develop a natural sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them, appreciate and draw inspiration from nature.
Our art curriculum supports our core values of personal development, perseverance and resilience. We want our children to work skillfully and to care about the details when producing their art work, however we aspire to give them the freedom and confidence to feel they don’t need to ‘stay inside the lines’.
Art affects everyone’s life and culture – it is a universal way to send messages between each other and through time and we aspire for our children to have a deep understanding of how it can have such impact. We want our children to explore and celebrate a diverse range of artists from their locality and around the world. Our intention is to nurture the next generation of artists.
Implementation: How will we achieve this?
Our children follow a unique and progressive art curriculum that supports children’s creativity from Early Years to Year 6. It is practical in design to ensure children know more, remember more and can do more as they progress through school. All teaching and learning in art is rooted in practical and first hand experiences and children have opportunities to use high quality resources and materials to support their learning.
Our curriculum is taught across four strands:
• Painting
• Drawing
• 3D Modelling and Sculpture
• Printing and Collage
At Barley Fields Primary School, our art curriculum is carefully designed to be rigorous and progressive from Early Years to Year 6. In the Early Years, children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for art is ignited through regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. Throughout Key Stage One and Key Stage Two, the acquisition of skills and use of techniques in is developed, embedded and applied through thematic topics and links to artists, architects and designers. The progressive use of sketch books underpins and evidences children’s learning and development and our approach allows children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore art within concepts such as texture, colour, space, form, shape, line and pattern.
Our children have access to high quality art resources. The teaching of art is enhanced through the use of carefully sourced tools and materials such as drawing pencils, canvas paper, paints, clay and equipment such as specialist brushes.
Art is taught in blocks of lessons to ensure children have opportunities for sustained periods of study and have time to embed and enhance their knowledge and skills. Our curriculum is designed to offer visual, tactile and sensory experiences through quality first teaching and our school-wide practice of adaptive teaching. Detailed schemes of learning support appropriate teaching pedagogy in art, ensure continuity and carefully plan for progression and depth. We also regularly enrich the art curriculum with the support of an Artist in Residence who delivers sustained and specialist art teaching to classes during the academic year.
We are proud to offer a curriculum informed by the latest research and which undergoes regular reviews and updates to ensure its relevance and effectiveness. We are committed to offering our children an Art and Design curriculum that ensures our children have a real love and appreciation of art as they grow.
Our curriculum characters are designed to represent the expected art curriculum end points in each key stage. These end points are written in a child-friendly way and are shared regularly with the children to identify the core skills and knowledge needed to develop as an artist. The curriculum character for Art and Design is ‘Alex the Artist’, whose image and skill-set grows with the children as they move through school. Teachers use ‘Alex the Artist’ as a reference point for children to show what they should be able to do in art in each key phase.
Impact: This is what it will mean for our children
The impact of our Art and Design curriculum ensures our children’s have a progressive development of skills in art which in turn allows them to leave Barley Fields with a vast range of experiences and a passion for the subject.
Our art curriculum and our teaching and learning pedagogy leads to children who:
- Are creative and have the courage to explore, experiment and play with artistic possibilities
- Express their individual creativity
- Can communicate their feelings and ideas through self-expression and personal interpretation
- Develop a natural sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them and appreciate and draw inspiration from nature
- Work skillfully and care about the details in their art work
- Celebrate a diverse range of artists from their locality and around the world
- Have a deep understanding of how art can have such impact on people’s everyday lives and cultures
- Have a real love and appreciation of art as they grow
An enjoyment of artistic activities is central to our curriculum and children leave Barley Fields equipped with a love of creativity and an understanding of how they can express themselves in a range of artistic media.
