St Mark'sArt & Design
“Every child is an artist.” Pablo Picasso
“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Curriculum Statement:
The teaching of Art and Design is based on the aims and purposes outlined in the National Curriculum and has fidelity to the academic discipline of art. This means we will introduce students to art in a way that teaches fundamental skills and techniques: drawing, painting and sculpture, understanding of form, colour theory, composition and mediums. We will incorporate traditional and contemporary artists and designers whilst also making it accessible and enjoyable for pupils by encouraging creative expression and personal artistic growth and progression. This will help to foster an appreciation for art as both an academic and expressive subject and ensure that by the end of Key Stage 2, children will know, understand and apply key elements of Art and Design across these fundamental skills and techniques.
At St Mark's we value Art and Design as an essential part of the primary curriculum. aiming to offer opportunities for pupils to explore many different aspects of creativity and ways of expressing their individuality. We aim for children to develop their own creativity and become confident in being able to express themselves.
Intent:
•To foster an understanding and enjoyment of art, craft and design.
•For all children to value their individual responses and development, and be able to develop confidence, self-esteem and compassion through participation in the arts.
•To give all children the opportunities to develop specific art skills and reinforce established skills through progression within and across both Key Stages.
•To offer all children opportunities to design and complete artworks in a range of art forms and media.
•To experience a broad and balanced range of inspiration from artists and diverse cultures, to the natural world around them.
•To nurture links to other areas of the curriculum where appropriate, enriching other subjects and allowing children to make connections.
•To record the development of their ideas and their own skills through the use of a sketchbook. •To encourage all pupils to share and celebrate their artwork within the community.
The teaching and learning of art at St Mark’s provides children with the opportunities and skills to respond freely to inspiration, experiences and knowledge of the world around them. Through this, the children learn to make informed judgements and aesthetic decisions. We recognise art as a fundamental means of personal expression and encourage children to value their own and others’ creative contributions and achievements.
Implementation:
At St Mark's, teachers support children's artistic journeys through an enquiry approach based on the Access Art Primary Art Curriculum which is knowledge-rich.
EYFS
Children in EYFS at St Mark's will be nurtured through open-ended, playful exploration of materials, processes and ideas, which in turn support dexterity skills, promote early understanding of visual literacy skills, and begin to build children's confidence in their ability to make a personal, creative response to a stimuli.
There are 7 areas of exploration:
What Can We See? ; How Can We Explore Colour? ; How Can We Build Worlds? ; How Can We Explore Materials and Marks? ; How Can We Explore 3D Materials? ; How Can We Use Our Bodies To Make Art? ; How Can We Use Our Imaginations?
These opportunities for exploration will provide children in EYFS with a foundation on which to develop their creativity and work towards the Expressive Arts and Design Early Learning Goals:
Experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function; Share their creations, explaining the process they have used; Make use of props and materials when role playing characters in narratives and stories.
KS1 and KS2
Learning is built through weaving, layering and revisiting experiences centered around 3 core pathways which are delivered each year: Drawing and Sketchbook use, Surface and Colour, Working in 3D. The Access Art primary curriculum balances technical and factual knowledge, with experiential knowledge and self-knowledge. Every child has the opportunity to find the elements of art, craft & design which resonate for them.
The Access Art Primary Art Curriculum is supported by a series of “Talking Points” resources, carefully curated to introduce pupils to a wide variety of artists, designers and craftspeople from across the world where contemporary artists are juxtaposed with more traditional artists and from studying them, pupils can learn from the way they interpreted the world.
Each pathway tells a story, forms a journey and follows a particular format over 6 weeks which promotes excellent teaching & learning: Exploring Artists; Activities linked to enquiry: Reflection and evaluation. Throughout the sequence, children are given space and time to explore and respond.
Each primary curriculum pathway has supporting "I can ..." statements to facilitate discussions and for self-reflection. Ongoing discourse is essential to discover intention, understanding and outcomes and provides teachers with clarity of the children's progress throughout their artistic journey.
Impact
We believe that the impact of an arts rich curriculum will make a positive contribution to the quality of life for St Mark’s pupils, both within and beyond school.
•Through experiences of Art and Design at St Mark’s, children will become positive learners with enriched attitudes to learning in all subjects.
•Children will make individual and personal growth within their artistic journey.
•Pupils will build a wide range of skills, artistic vocabulary and experiential knowledge.
• Children will become self-reflective and will take pleasure in sharing their sketchbooks, outcomes and personal journeys with visitors. Pupils will reach the end of their primary years with confidence in their right to express themselves creatively and personally through art.
Further enrichment opportunities
Art is a club available to children at St Mark's and is held on Mondays after school.
In collaboration with the charity Wings To Fly, St Mark's invited artist Tim Davies of The School Artist to inspire and support children to create a sculptural response to their school. Further information can be found by following this link. Future collaborations to further the children's artistic development are in the pipeline!
Progression Documents