Art Curriculum Intent

1. Our curriculum will represent, value and celebrate the diverse society in which we live

Within our Art curriculum we seek to provide the pupils with examples of diverse art and artists from around the world to discuss and inspire their own art work.

2. All children will develop into confident, articulate communicators.

We want our pupils to have precise vocabulary to talk about art, expressing their preferences and be able to compare mediums, artists and styles with confidence. 

In classrooms and workshops, pupils are encouraged to observe and appraise with an understanding that their views and opinions may differ from their peers.

3. All children will be challenged.

We aim to offer all pupils a range of practical, visual and tactile experiences in Art with a view to extending their all-round development. Art lessons aim to enable our children to make informed judgements and to develop a sense of colour and aesthetics. Our Art Curriculum will play an important role in meeting the needs of all our pupils with a full range of learning styles. It will offer a context for learning where pupils who learn best through a kinaesthetic or visual approach may have an opportunity to harness and apply their skills and be recognised for their strengths.

4. The topic and content of our Curriculum will be varied, immersive and engaging.

We aim, wherever possible, to link art lessons with a full range of other curricular areas as this particularly benefits pupils with a visual or kinaesthetic approach to learning and enriches and enhances all the children’s understanding of a range of subjects.  However, to ensure that art skills and knowledge are prioritised, the children will follow a structured programme that – over three terms and year by year – will introduce them to a variety of art techniques and media that will engage and develop them.

5. All children will use their creativity.

We aim to provide a curriculum which teaches the precise handling and use of tools, techniques and media and within this structured framework children will have opportunities to explore and personalise these skills and, where appropriate, through open-ended challenges – individually and collaboratively. We aim to provide visual starting points drawn from a range of cultures to inspire children from all backgrounds. Visual examples will model colours, styles and techniques that the children can reference when developing and imagining their own ideas.

6. All children will become happy, empathetic and confident citizens.

We aim for art to feel like an accessible topic for all our children, regardless of their background so that any one of our children could walk confidently into an art gallery in the future. Our Art curriculum will play its part in ensuring that they can feel knowledgeable when using and hearing art language and at ease when looking at art or talking about contemporary and past artist’s work. We aim for the Art curriculum to enable children to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form, pattern and materials and through this process they will develop new ways of expressing themselves. By exploring art from different times and cultures they will enrich and mature their understanding of other people’s lives and ways of thinking.

We constantly review our curriculum in order for it to be relevant and of interest to the children, providing them with the knowledge and skills they need for the next stages of their lives throughout and after primary school. The progression of knowledge and skills the children need to learn have been carefully sequenced, and the summary of their learning journey in Art is below or click the link to enlarge.