Art & Design
Intent
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. At Mount Pleasant Primary School, we aim to deliver a high-quality art and design education that inspires, engages and challenges children - enabling pupils to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of line, shape, tone, texture, pattern and colour.
Our aim is for children to produce creative and carefully considered art work through a range of medium and styles. They will become increasingly more proficient in their drawing, painting and other art forms. Children explore ideas and meaning through the work of artists and designers. Additionally, as they learn about the history, roles and functions of art, they explore the impact that it has on contemporary life and that of different times and cultures.
Implementation
To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in art and design, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Art and design is taught half-termly, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum.
The art and design curriculum at Mount Pleasant is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills and taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan lessons for their class using units from Kapow for their year group. This ensures the curriculum is covered and the knowledge and skills taught are progressive from year group to year group. The Kapow Art and Design scheme of work is designed with the following strands running throughout:
- Making skills
- Formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)
- Knowledge of artists
- Evaluation
These strands are revisited in every unit and pupils have the opportunity to practise skills discretely. Key skills are revisited again and again with increasing complexity; this allows pupils to revisit previously taught skills and build upon them.
At the end of each unit, children’s learning is assessed against the objectives and skills identified on the planning.
Educational visits are another opportunity for the teachers to plan for additional art learning outside the classroom. At Mount Pleasant, the children have many opportunities to experience art and design first hand through educational visits, including the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Huddersfield Art Gallery.
Artist-educators, who deliver unique and meaningful workshops, are invited to work within our setting; such workshops inspire critical thinking and deeper understanding. Local artist Jane Middleton led a hands-on workshop which commemorated the Queen over the decades. A selection of KS2 pupils created their own portraits of the Queen using mixed media. Within their compositions, pupils experimented with shading techniques and thought about line, shape, form and space.
Impact
Our art and design curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work. By the time children leave school, they ae ready for the next stage of their education as they:
- Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
- Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
Know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
Pupil Voice
“Art is the best! I enjoy getting messy and mastering new skills and techniques.” Muhammad Ali (Year 5).
“I like the fact that I can be creative and express myself freely when doing art.” Sarya Hassaan (Year 4).
“I enjoy being able to utilise different skills and techniques when producing my final pieces of artwork,” Ismaeel Khan (Year 3).