Intent

At St Cuthbert’s, we believe that art is a vital and integral part of children’s education. It provides them with opportunities to develop a range of ways in which they can share and express their individual creativity, whilst making intellectual links with a wide spectrum of different types of art in our society.

Art contributes to children’s spiritual development through creativity, independence, and self-reflection. Moreover, it enables pupils to develop a natural sense of wonder and curiosity about God’s world and therefore links strongly to our school values. The focus is in developing key skills for proficiency in drawing, painting, understanding colour and shade and sculpture, with the overall aim of developing a deep understanding, critical awareness and inspiration of art and design.

The art curriculum will develop children’s critical abilities and understanding of their own and others’ cultural heritages through studying a diverse range of male and female artists and designers throughout history.

Children will develop their understanding of the language of art with effective teaching and carefully thought-out project based experiences. Understanding of the visual elements of art and design (line, tone, texture, colour, pattern, shape, 3D form) will be developed by providing an accessible and engaging curriculum, which will enable children to reach their full potential.

Implementation

Art and design is taught weekly for three half terms a year, alternating with Design Technology. At St Cuthbert’s, we follow the Kapow Primary scheme of work to inform our planning and subject knowledge. This scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art.

The Kapow programme supports children to meet the National curriculum attainment targets, which aim to inspire children to be creative and experience and participate in great arts and culture.

There are five strands that are developed when implementing Art and Design, these are:

● Generating ideas
● Using sketchbooks
● Making skills, including formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)
● Knowledge of artists
● Evaluating and analysing

Units of lessons are sequential, allowing children to build their skills and knowledge, applying them to a range of outcomes. The formal elements are also woven throughout units. Key skills are revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity. This allows pupils to revise and build on their previous learning.
Units in each year group are organised into four core areas:
● Drawing
● Painting and mixed-media
● Sculpture and 3D
● Craft and design

We encourage children to view their sketchbooks as an artistic journey, which is more like a journal of their own art. In doing so, we aim for children to have autonomy in the way they present their learning, so that it can feel personal to them.