Art and Design

Intent

At St Mary’s we strive to offer a fully inclusive art and design curriculum, designed to engage, inspire and challenge pupils creatively, physically and sensorially.

We also aim for children to gain a good knowledge of various artists or art movements throughout their years at our school and we choose some to pull on all interests of children. We hope this will inspire the children to create their own artwork, using their taught knowledge and exploration to inform their own work. Our intent is that children will create art regularly each term, sometimes as a stand-alone subject and sometimes to support other subjects in class.

We hope to instil an appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts.  We involve children in a range of visual, tactile and sensory experiences, which give them opportunities to communicate what they see, think and feel through the use of the elements of colour, texture, form and pattern.  Art and design promotes careful observation and an appreciation of the world around us.

We also use art and design as a tool to engage in whole school projects to support our return to school after lockdowns, as community support, to explore certain storybooks and for children with SEND needs to support their journey through school.

Implementation

At St Mary’s we have a curriculum that is based on the National Curriculum, which provides a broad framework for us to work from. Teachers plan lessons for their classes, linked with their Key Stage topics and learning objectives throughout the year. They also follow a guideline of which artists and movements to cover in which Key Stage, to ensure good coverage and progression of skills.

Art and Design should also support children’s communication and writing skills, as teachers will encourage pupils to write their ideas, concepts and findings about an artist/movement/their own artwork. Art and Design also strengthens fine motor skills in the hands, wrists, arms and core body, all of which are needed for controlled, clear handwriting.

Impact

At St Mary’s we choose to celebrate each and every child’s creative outlets and products, and we assess them on confidence and ability to link their thoughts and creations with the knowledge they learn within their art exploration.

We assess whether they are engaging with the art curriculum, and can learn and retain some simple information regarding artists/movements such as names and characteristics of that style.

We also look at how their control and fine motor skills develop over the time they are at St Mary’s, using art as the viewpoint for this. We hope that we would then see the same progress of control in their writing control too.

We also put a big emphasis on using art and design to relax and regulate our emotions and behaviour throughout our school life, and particularly this year, we hope that all children will enjoy their art sessions and look forward to the break from the more formal learning subjects. 

Artists/movements explored throughout St Mary’s

• Pointillism
• Kandinsky
• Pixel Art
• Comic Strips
• Cubism
• Photography
• Pop Art
• Graffiti

Project Positive

During the first lockdown, children were encouraged to create their own artwork of anything positive, and these were displayed outside on our school fence to give positivity and hope to the local community and the families at St Mary’s.

Examples of work across the school