Art

Subject Leader: Mrs Emily Lile

Our vision

Art is a subject that provides children with opportunities for expressing their imagination through a range of ways – from paintings to modelling. Art provides opportunities to build on fine motor skills and enables children to learn about and decide what medium can best portray their imagination.

This vision of art is what our art curriculum is built around here at Hartwell Primary School. Through our high quality provision, we provide opportunities for children to work with a variety of media, style and form to express their imagination – whether this be to a specific criteria or just as an independent activity. Art takes words and puts them into a different visual aspect and we intend for our children to understand this concept as it may be a preferred way of communicating thoughts, ideas and feelings. Our art curriculum also teaches about how other people have achieved this to inspire and help build a wider appreciation of art around the world and in our society. Children should leave our school feeling confident with expressing their ideas, thoughts and feelings through a range of different ways, in addition to working both independently and in a team to meet specific requirements – two very important like skills.

The subject leader

To ensure an effective art curriculum, I monitor teaching and learning through lesson observations and work scrutinies, in addition to gathering pupil voice. Such actions enable me to understand how art is going in our school and what areas we can celebrate and build on too to ensure an engaging and high quality curriculum. I work closely with teachers to support planning and teaching so our lessons can offer interactive and progressive learning opportunities delivered by someone who feels that they can offer the same. I also take a lead in planning wider art opportunities around the school, including art weeks and competitions to promote how art can be a learning opportunity away from the classroom. I invest in high-quality resources for lessons to take place and also attend CPD to help build both others and my own knowledge and skills so high standards of teaching and learning can be delivered.

Pupil Voice

Children’s views about art is valuable as it allows us teachers to hear about how our provision is going and in return guide us in what direction to go next to further enhance our high-quality teaching and learning.

SMSC in Art

Art School Development Plan 2023-24

The Art curriculum at Hartwell

At Hartwell, art is taught across all year groups. The objectives for the subject from the National Curriculum (NC) are split into year groups so progression is made and a focus on knowledge and skills can be made. Skills, such as using a medium, may be taught as an independent lesson first but learning eventually progresses into a cross-curricular activity where relevant to make learning meaningful and memorable and to consolidate knowledge and skills in all lessons links. For example, in Year 4 pupils will study Stone Age art and its impact during this era but pupils will also use charcoal as a way of expressing this. Some activities may also be taught independently away from a cross-curricular focus to ensure breadth and depth are covered and quality coverage of NC objectives. One way of meeting this is through an Art Week, where all year groups focus on a specific objective and its historical impact, producing a piece of work related to this. Most recently, we focused on the historical and local concept of shoes. Teachers will plan carefully to make all lessons are accessible for all and leave children understanding different ways of expressing their thoughts, ideas and feelings which will progress over their time at Hartwell Primary School.

In Key Stage 1, pupils are taught:

to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products
to use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
to develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to their own work.

In Key Stage 2, pupils are taught:

to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products
to use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
to develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to their own work.

Early Years Foundation Stage

Art take places regularly in Reception at our school, contributing significantly to many of the Early Learning Goals (ELGs), including ‘Expressive Arts and Design’. Pupils will be introduced and will explore different mediums, as well as ways of expressing their imagination. For example, children look at the work of Andrew Goldsworthy and be inspired to use natural resources as a form of expression. Children are also offered opportunities to complete artistic activities independently through our Reception’s own Arts and Crafts Area. All of these learning opportunities help children to not only fund ways of expressing their ideas but to also build and reflect upon it, to find other ways of doing things differently and to meet specific goals.