Art Curriculum

Intent

At Barley Lane Primary, we believe that high-quality art lessons will inspire children to think creatively and develop imaginative procedural understanding.

Our art curriculum provides children with opportunities to progress their skills using a range of media and materials. Children learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles, 3D work and digital art and are given the opportunity to explore and evaluate different creative ideas. Children will be introduced to a range of works and develop knowledge of the styles and vocabulary used by famous artists. The skills they acquire are applied to their cross-curricular topics, allowing children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore topics in greater depth; for example, by sketching historical artefacts in detail, researching geographical locations to support their work on landscape painting or using art as a medium to express emotion and thought to enhance their personal, social and emotional development. Many areas of art link with mathematical ideas of shape and space; for example, when printing repeating patterns and designs and thinking about 3D shapes to support structures. It is paramount that artwork be purposeful; be this as a means of expression or to explore the styles of other artists that inspire our own work. Pupils should be clear what the intended outcomes are and have a means to measure their own work against this.

In art, children are expected to be reflective and evaluate their work, thinking about how they can make changes and keep improving. This should be meaningful and continuous throughout the process, with evidence of age-related verbal and written refection.  Children are encouraged to take risks and experiment and then reflect on why some ideas and techniques are successful or not for a project.

Implementation

At Barley lane, teachers are provided with CPD sessions, to plan their curriculum. As part of this planning process, teachers need to plan the following: 

• The curriculum sequences outlines knowledge (including vocabulary) all children must master and link to other subjects;
• A cycle of lessons for each topic area, which carefully plans for progression and depth; 
• Challenge questions for pupils to apply their learning in a philosophical/open manner; 
• Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience;  
• A means to display and celebrate the pupils’ artwork in their class / around the school.

Impact

Progression in art will be assessed throughout each key stage through the children’s ability to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study. We assess the children through:

• Observing children at work during art sessions.
• Questioning the children in relation to their programme of study in order to assess their understanding and comprehension.
• Assessment/marking the work produced by the children and discussion of their next steps.
• Pupil discussions about their learning; which includes discussion of their thoughts, ideas, processing and evaluations of work.