Intent

At Thomas Whitehead, we believe that high-quality Art lessons will inspire children to think artistically and develop creative procedural understanding. Our Art curriculum provides children with opportunities, using Cornerstone Scheme of Work, to ensure and develop their skills and knowledge using a range of media and materials.

Children learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles, 3D work and digital art and are given the opportunity to explore and evaluate different creative ideas. Children will be introduced to a range of works and develop knowledge of the styles and vocabulary used by famous artists. The skills they acquire are applied to their cross-curricular topics, allowing children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore topics in greater depth; for example, by sketching historical artefacts in detail, researching geographical locations to support their work on landscape painting or using art as a medium to express emotion and thought to enhance their personal, social and emotional development. Many areas of art link with mathematical ideas of shape and space; for example when printing repeating patterns and designs and thinking about 3D shapes to support structures. It is paramount that art work be purposeful; be this as a means of expression or to explore the styles of other artists that inspire our own work. Pupils should be clear what the intended outcomes are and have a means to measure their own work against this.

In Art, children are expected to be reflective and evaluate their work, thinking about how they can make changes and keep improving. This should be meaningful and continuous throughout the process. Children are encouraged to take risks and experiment and then reflect on why some ideas and techniques are successful or not for a particular project.

Implementation:
Art is taught as part of the humanities driver project in Curriculum Maestro. A clear teaching sequence is followed which ensures that children are gaining the appropriate skills through a thematic approach.

Our Art curriculum provides: 

• New technical language and vocabulary 

• A cycle of lessons for each subject, which carefully plans for progression and depth;

• A means to display and celebrate the pupils’ artwork in their class.

Impact:

Our Art Curriculum is broad and balanced and is planned to demonstrate progression. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes;

• A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school;

• Pupil discussions about their learning; which includes discussion of their thoughts, ideas, processing and evaluations of work.