Art and Design
Welcome to our Art and Design Page!
Here you will find all the information you need to know on how we teach Art and Design at St Margaret's, some of our initiatives that we undertake and any other key information. If you would like any more information about anything you have read, please speak to Mrs Maddison-Tansey.
What is the intent of our Art curriculum?
We, at St Margaret’s CE Junior School, believe that art is a vital part of children’s education. Our art curriculum will develop children’s critical abilities, as well as an understanding of their own and others’ cultural heritages through the study of a diverse range of artists. Learning within art, craft and design stimulates creativity and imagination. It provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a special way of understanding and responding to the world. A high-quality art and design education should inspire, engage and challenge children.
Children will develop their understanding of the visual language of art with effective teaching and considered sequences of lessons and experiences. Understanding of the visual elements of art and design (line, tone, texture, colour, pattern, shape, 3D form) will be developed by providing a curriculum which will enable children to reach their full potential. Additionally, as they learn about the history, roles and functions of art, they can explore the impact that it has on contemporary life and that of different times and cultures.
How do we implement our Art curriculum?
The skills and knowledge that children will develop throughout each art topic are mapped across each year group and are progressive throughout the school. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that children understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists that they are learning about and being inspired by. This enables links to other curriculum areas, including humanities, with children developing a considerable knowledge of individual artists, as well as individual works and art movements. A similar systematic approach to the development of artistic skills means that children are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practise and develop mastery in the key processes of art.
Our implementation in both Art and in all areas of the curriculum, allows us to focus on our curriculum drivers in our intent. We encourage resilience, independence, communication and language by linking art to all areas of the curriculum. Children are encouraged to develop and refine ideas, evaluating their work and the work of others and to reflect on their outcomes and achievements both verbally and in written form. We provide children with opportunities to aspire to be better as we use high quality examples of artists’ work to stimulate and inspire but also to show what can be aspired to. The work of children is also used to demonstrate high quality work by peers to encourage the children to set their own targets for achievement.
How do we assess the impact of our Art curriculum?
The structure of the art curriculum ensures that children are able to develop their knowledge and understanding of the work of artists, craftspeople and designers from a range of times and cultures and apply this knowledge to their own work. The consistent use of children’s sketchbooks means that children are able to review, modify and develop their initial ideas in order to achieve high quality outcomes. Children learn to understand and apply the key principles of art: line, tone, texture, shape, form, space, pattern, colour, contrast, composition, proportion and perspective. The opportunity for children to refine and develop their techniques over time is supported by effective lesson sequencing and progression between year groups. This also supports children in achieving age related expectations at the end of their cohort year.
Classroom displays reflect the children’s sense of pride in their artwork and this is also demonstrated by creative outcomes across the wider curriculum with clear links to cross-curricular teaching using art to support the learning of all abilities.
The school environment also celebrates children’s achievements in art and demonstrates the subject’s high status in the school, with outcomes, including an Art Gallery of high quality artwork taken from art lessons but also from art in other subjects. The Art curriculum at St. Margaret’s contributes to children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection.
Through following a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum, it expected that teaching and learning will show progression across all key stages within the strands of Art. Subsequently, more children will achieve age related expectations in Art at the end of their cohort year and Key Stage. It is our aim that children will retain knowledge and skills taught within each unit of work, remember these and understand how to use and apply these in their own art work, whilst beginning to understand what being in ‘artist’ means.
We are able to measure the impact that Art has had for all children by:
• Determining the extent to which objectives are met within each lesson and overall, at the end of each unit.
• Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
• Images of the children’s practical learning.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
By the time children leave St Margaret’s CE Junior School, we want them to have developed a passion for art and creativity, working both independently and collaboratively. They will have grown in confidence when using a range of tools and techniques, becoming artists that can apply the skills and knowledge that they have developed throughout the years and respond critically to their own and other’s work.
Art at St. Margaret’s is a vital part of the curriculum. Lessons are integrated into termly topics to inspire and excite the children. It is obvious to see how much the children enjoy the subject as the results speak for themselves! Our learning environment is full of life and colour, from murals to the children’s work, celebrating art in all its forms.
The children at St. Margaret's are provided with a chance to express themselves in a variety of different media from clay to collage, painting to pencil. Their skills are developed as they progress through the school as they are given the opportunity to explore their expressive side as we integrate Art into many areas as part of a cross-curricular curriculum.
