Art and Design
At Treales CE Primary School, we value the importance of Art and Design. It is our children’s entitlement to be able to share and express their individual creativity, independence, resilience, and self-reflection. It is our intent to provide all children with the fundamental skills, techniques and knowledge needed to independently create their own unique drawings, paintings, sculptures, and crafts. We want the children to have a natural sense of wonder and curiosity when studying a wide variety of artwork. We empower children to discover great artists that will enable them to explore their own and other’s cultural heritages. We give the children the time and space to explore new themes, new sensations, and ways to be creative without the need to be perfect. At Treales CE Primary School, we believe that the process takes precedence over the product. We want our children to see the enjoyment and satisfaction in the process of producing art. It is through the children’s personalised experience of art at Treales CE Primary School, that we enable the children to feel safe, secure, and happy, to produce their most creative work.
The teaching and implementation of the Art and Design Curriculum at Treales CE Primary School is based on the National Curriculum in KS1 and KS2 and Development Matters in EYFS and are both linked to topics to ensure a well-structured approach to this creative subject. We teach a skills-based art curriculum, which allows the children to express their creative imagination as well as providing them with the opportunities to practice and develop mastery in the key processes of art. We use the teaching sequences and projects from AccessArt. This is supported through the studying of key artists and the development of a knowledge of their work. It is up to our teacher’s discretion, experience, and judgement to plan effective sequences of lessons for their children- whether this is a block of lessons, a whole day of art or on a weekly basis. We are flexible to meet the children’s needs and tailor their experience of art based on their interests, skills, and what areas they need to develop further. We ensure that progression is being made in children’s skills and knowledge of drawing, printing, painting, colour, sculpture, texture, and pattern, by following a skills progression document. In EYFS the children have daily access to a variety of media and materials which they can explore to produce their own creative work. Provision is carefully planned to suit the interests of the children, whilst developing the necessary skills they are working on. Through on-going observations of the children, the adults have an in-depth knowledge about each child’s development. This ensures that the adults facilitating learning know each child’s next steps and can give the children the learning opportunity and experience they need to develop their skills in art. We place high importance on EYFS, as we know this provides the fundamental base for all learning. It is then in KS1, where the fundamental skills are developed and we look for any gaps in the children’s skills, so that we can close any gaps at an earlier stage. By upper KS2, we aim for the children to use all the skills and knowledge that has been built upon year after year, to apply it to a variety of media and materials. Throughout school we use sketchbooks to document children’s art learning journey, they are given time with their sketch books to practise new skills before applying them to create a new piece of artwork. As well as this, art is promoted throughout our school through a variety of platforms. We hold after school art clubs, ‘Big Art’ whole school collaborative projects such as for Great Eccleston Show, art competitions, displays such as Young Seasiders and art and craft ‘Learn with me’ sessions for parents.
By the end of each Key Stage, all children can apply and understand the skills, knowledge and processes they have been taught so that they are proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft, and design techniques. Teachers use summative assessments to record the progress and attainment against the National Curriculum expectations. This information is used to inform future lessons; ensuring children are always supported and challenged appropriately. Most importantly, children will leave Treales CE Primary School knowing that it is okay to make mistakes along their journey, they will think for themselves and be critical about their own and other’s work- knowing how they can improve it or knowing when to stop if they are satisfied with their creative work.
‘Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.’ – Mary Lou Cook