Art and Design

Curriculum Intent

At Loscoe our art curriculum is based upon our vision, ‘we may be small but together we can make a big difference.’ We aim to encourage children to express themselves in a creative and imaginative manner allowing them to to be curious, inspired and self-expressive. We take every step to ensure all children have an experience of the wide breadth of art and artists from around the world covering a selection of art work from a diverse range of backgrounds.

We want children of all abilities to access the knowledge, skills and vocabulary necessary to discuss Art and Artists with an understanding which is underpinned by the Christian values and British values which make our school community one of celebration and compassion.

We want to embrace all opportunities to weave art throughout our curriculum linking to topics and child led interests taking great care to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development through art by exploring and discussing work from a wide range of artists that cross cultural boundaries and across time, allowing pupils to investigate how moral and ethical issues are portrayed in art.

Implementation

Whilst delivering this curriculum, we ensure art is progressive throughout the primary school years, providing the pupils with new, more complex challenges as their primary age progresses. We implement our intent through:

Using a wide variety of quality resources, tools and materials including art through different mediums
Staff following the Kapow units of work, alongside the knowledge and skills progression document and whole school overview to plan for the year.
Staff will adopt an adaptive curriculum to take account different learning needs; meaning all pupils access an ambitious art curriculum. Teachers will consult the SENCO and refer to Inclusion Strategies document for guidance.
Teachers critically evaluate the needs of their class in relation to the skills and progression grids, choosing appropriate artists to study and communicating this frequently so that a broad variety of skills/artists can be explored throughout a child’s primary school life rather than repeated.
Opportunities for educational visits and external visitors to school to enrich the art curriculum.
Art planned into other elements of the curriculum and enrichment activities to provide further opportunities for children to develop their schools.

Impact

At Loscoe, we will see creative individuals who feel free to express themselves through different mediums of art and design. Children will be able to articulate opinions and evaluate their own and others’ art work, including that of famous artists, and experience success and pride in many art projects. Children will be ambitious about what they can achieve and show genuine interest in the diverse world of art and design. We will know our impact has been effective through:

Children’s understanding, knowledge and skills are monitored by class teachers and subject leaders. This is then used to inform differentiation, challenge and support.
Classroom displays enable children to feel pride in their artwork and this is demonstrated by creative outcomes across the wider curriculum.
Formative assessments are used to inform future delivery of these sessions
The children’s artwork having purpose, for example contributing to the wider community through their projects including entering local and national competitions
The children exhibit creativity and confidence which can be evident in other areas of the curriculum.
The children’s cultural capital will be enhanced through the opportunities they are provided with in Art at Loscoe C of E Primary School.
Sketchbooks will follow the children of Loscoe Primary School, so they can track their journey as an artist throughout their time at school.
We understand that the pandemic affected the opportunities for practical art for our children at Loscoe, therefore we use our progression documents to ensure that we consider the gaps in knowledge and skills.

Wider Curriculum

In Art and Design, we strive to provide lots of enrichment to promote a love for the subject, give art a context and emphasise the importance of this to children. This Academic year we have re-named our classes after famous artists to drive forward with an improved appreciation and understanding of what art is and how artists compare and contrast through their work, cultures and historical contexts.

At Loscoe, we pledge that every child will visit a gallery during their time with us. These trips are planned every other year, meaning that by the time the children have left Loscoe they will have experienced a variety of art galleries and been exposed to many different styles of art.

As part of our Loscoe Promise, we also pledge that our children will work with a local artist during their time with us. This is sometimes as part of our art gallery visits, and at other times a visitor to school.

We engage in national art projects such as the ‘Take One Picture’ with The National Gallery, where all schools across the country study one piece of art and develop work to be submitted and exhibited. Some years, we strive to take the children to London to see this and become immersed in it. Where this is not possible, we do many virtual exhibition tours to ensure our children are exposed to different significant places of art. We also strive to work in local projects, where we work with local artists and charities.

Careers

There are so many amazing careers in art and design that are available. The skills needed for these are all about creating things, planning, evaluating, designing, and many more skills that we promote. Careers in art and design can span many different specialist areas.

The teaching and learning of art and design supports careers, such as:

Painter
Photographer
Animator
Architect
Graphic designers
Fashion designer
Web Designer
Illustrator
Prop Designer

Artist Coverage

At Loscoe C of E Primary, we follow the Kapow scheme of work, however we adapt this to meet the local needs of our children and enrichment opportunities. We work on a one year cycle in Reception and keystage 1, and a two year cycle for Key stage 2. The complete lists of artists that we will cover can be found in our school’s medium term plans, as these are often related to our topics. We will however cover a wide variety of men and women from different cultures, inspirational artists who are living with different disabilities, alongside covering artists that are both alive and dead.

SMSC

Art is an extremely sociable subject where discussions on preferences and evaluations of art are promoted and key. Working in groups allows children to learn from each other and to share ideas and feelings. Art helps them to develop a respect for the abilities of other children and encourages collaboration.

In relation to spiritual development, Art introduces children to the work of great Artists and experiencing wonder and awe at the achievements of these great works of art. They also experience great admiration and respect for their peers’ work, especially in relation to looking at their progression over time with their sketchbooks that follow them throughout their school life.

With moral development, art encourages mutual respect, peer evaluation and the consideration for others’ work, including that of famous artists. Pupils are encouraged to show compassion when assessing the work of others through understanding how their comments can build up or destroy another’s self- belief.

Art supports our children’s cultural development work as they study various cultures and civilizations from around the world. This leads to a greater understanding of different ways of life and a respect for cultures that are very different from our own; how they can enrich our own lives. It is fantastic as we provide opportunities to compare and contrast our own and other cultures, leading to pupils incorporating designs, patterns and motifs in their own work developed by a deeper understanding of the culture.

British Values

Open discussions about preferences in art, and evaluating others' work creates an environment that is accepting of different beliefs, opinions and abilities of others. Children learn about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and show tolerance of these. All of our artistic experiences teach them that everyone is important, and that everyone will have different life experiences and skills that we can celebrate and respect. Art requires a lot of teamwork, where children will take a democratic approach to working collaboratively, including making compromises and sharing decisions.

Protected Characteristics

At Loscoe C of E Primary, we want to give our children an open, respectful and realistic mindset towards the wonderful world we live in and how this relates to art. We strive to expose them to a range of significant artists from all different backgrounds related to the protected characteristics, and have planned for this in our varied curriculum. Children will begin the new year learning about the artist linked to their class name and through projects within the Kapow curriculum will continue to develop their appreciation of artists from a variety of communities.

Useful links and websites including things you can do with your child

Things you can do with your child in the local area related to art and design include: