Intent

The National Curriculum for Art aims to ensure that all pupils:
1. Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences.
2. Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
3. Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
4. Know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms

At Heskin Pemberton’s, we strive to ensure that we provide our children with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art. We want our pupils to learn about and from great artists, and understand that art itself is an exploratory journey, with varied and individual
outcomes. We strive for this to be aspirational and accessible to all of our pupils to help them develop an attitude of curiosity, open-mindedness, creative-risk taking and reflection.

Implementation

Planning and teaching: To achieve the aims of the National Curriculum and our school values, Art is taught in half termly blocks, opposite a Design and Technology unit. In half terms where Design and Technology is taught, children focus on their proficiency in drawing as support by Access Art. Staff in school use Access Art to plan progressively and to enable them to link their work to other topics they are studying in school to add more depth. We study artists, designers and craftspeople throughout each unit, so that we can learn from the way they see the world. Early Years also promotes the learning of Art through their ‘Expressive arts and design’ early learning goal, and also follow planning and support from Access Art to ensure the children are ready to progress.

Leadership, Assessment and Feedback: There are no national standards in Primary Art and Design, so we advocate ongoing assessment based upon lots of conversation, to discover intention and understanding, as well as looking at outcomes of the journey and end result. We use sketchbooks to reflect the children’s creative learning journeys and above all else we know that creativity can be fragile – so we tread with care. There is no marking of these journals, as the children’s creativity is subjective and a reflection of themselves. Instead, we use lots of ‘Can I..?’ questions to gauge the children’s understanding, in addition to our skills progressions.

Impact

The Heskin Art Curriculum is about opening art up to the children, giving them lots of different kinds of opportunities and experiences (media, techniques, approaches, artists), all underpinned by creative use of drawing and sketchbooks. We know our children are learning and making progress in Art when they:

• Feel inspired by the work of others and are excited to develop a life-long learningfor the subject
• Develop their capacity for imaginative and original thoughtthrough experimentation.
• Develop their abilities to articulate and communicate ideas, options and feelings about their own work and that of others.
• Experience an abundance of opportunities to explore and experiment with different skills and techniques.
• Learn about artists, designers and architectsand understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
• Achieve well in Art which is reflected through a consistent learning journeyand clear progress.
• Effectively evaluate their ownlearning and from this see progression throughout their sketchbooks.
• Experienced many history based trips, themed days and visitors which help to embed their learning and offer lasting memories.
• Developed resilience,competence and confidence in their own ability in a range of Art skills