Art 

Intent

Art and Design is taught as a discrete subject alongside whole-school themed events such as the termly Wall Art projects, contributions to STEAM week and as part of the school’s religious life.

It is our belief that Art and Design is a cornerstone of a child’s education. It is essential that children are given opportunities to explore and share their ideas in creative ways, and art as a subject provides an opportunity to examine the creative process explicitly and critically. A quality Art and Design education provides an ideal bridge between knowledge and expression; children will have opportunities to be creative while developing their understanding of materials, composition, symbols and motifs in the context of the history of art. Through learning about the roles and functions of art in society, children can explore the impact it has had on contemporary life as well as during different times and on different cultures.

Our intent is that art and design at St Francis de Sales will develop a rigorous understanding of how art and design reflects and has shaped our national and world history and has contributed to the culture, creativity and wealth of the nation. Through experimenting and persevering with a broad and challenging range of processes, materials and techniques children will develop their resilience and aspiration to excel. By exploring the work and legacy of a range of artists from diverse cultures from the local community, the UK and around the world, our children will build on and consolidate their cultural capital, social awareness and willingness to consider different worldviews.

The school curriculum is based on the Lion Learning Pathways Art curriculum from Lion Academy Trust, which has been chosen for its comprehensive, well-resourced and carefully sequenced units of work, focused on developing a rich vocabulary base and suitability for an adaptive teaching approach. Units of work build on previous years’ study, following strands of progression through explicit study of the formal elements, revisiting and adding to subject vocabulary, the range of techniques and concepts taught. The curriculum covers all requirements of the National Curriculum for Art and Design in primary education.
Medium term planning is adapted from the Lion Pathways curriculum booklets, and short-term plans are adapted by classroom teachers from the Lion Pathways Miro resource, which provides examples of vocabulary, image and video resources, and some modelled outcomes.

Implementation

Each year group has three units of work, intended to be taught in half-termly blocks, alternating in timetable time with design and technology. The units of work are intended to provide approximately six sessions of around one hour a week.

At the start of a lesson, you should see a classroom prepared for the purpose – appropriate resources laid out, surfaces protected, an area prepared for finished work etc.

You can expect to see an art lesson at St Francis De Sales begin with a review of what has been learnt before: If the lesson is early in a unit this will be recollection of previously taught vocabulary and concepts, if the unit has advanced then there will also be reflection and feedback on the learning and work done in previous lessons. You will hear children being encouraged to discuss their own work, or the work of the artist being studied, using appropriate vocabulary, from general subject terms embedded over time (line, colour, texture, composition etc.), to specific technical terms that have been introduced in the unit (gesso, vanishing point, cross-hatching etc). You will see specific techniques and/or concepts being the focus of a particular lesson (for example, rolling clay to make a coil pot), which will be modelled by the teacher with or without video support, and interspersed with targeted questioning designed to enhance understanding of the process (why do I have to roll the clay evenly? Why do I have to keep my hands damp? etc).
Depending on the class, children may be working along with the teacher or focusing all their attention on the modelling. Independent working will be focused but relaxed, where all children will be able to explain what they are trying to accomplish, name the techniques they are applying, and will be comfortable with asking for support when needed, but able to try resolving problems for themselves and with peer support. Children will be encouraged to experiment and expand their creations through multiple attempts, application of other techniques learned previously and their own imaginations. Teachers will adapt their teaching to the conditions of the classroom in several ways, including focused support during independent working, pairing children based on effective peer support, and encouraging further experimentation or inclusion of other processes for those who are showing mastery of skills being taught. Lessons should end with time to have a ‘crit’, or look at all the work produced, with children encouraged to supportively evaluate each other’s work against the expectations of the lesson, once again using subject vocabulary.
Sketchbooks

A child’s sketchbook will show a progression of learning across a unit and across their time in the school. These will show technical exercises (e.g. colour wheels, shading swatches, rendered 3D shapes etc,) as well as work around the artists being studied, including written opinions about the artists’ work. There will be evidence of subject specific vocabulary being used correctly in context, for example the names of the artists studied, the techniques and styles for which they are known, and discussion about what the student likes or does not like about the work.

Sketchbooks

A child’s sketchbook will show a progression of learning across a unit and across their time in the school. These will show technical exercises (e.g. colour wheels, shading swatches, rendered 3D shapes etc,) as well as work around the artists being studied, including written opinions about the artists’ work. There will be evidence of subject specific vocabulary being used correctly in context, for example the names of the artists studied, the techniques and styles for which they are known, and discussion about what the student likes or does not like about the work.

Impact

Assessment

Each unit is designed to end with the children creating one or more pieces of work that demonstrate the techniques and concepts taught. Children will complete a small self-reflection on the unit, considering what they have done well and what they found challenging, and to identify what new knowledge they have learned.

Teachers’ assessment of students’ progress in art is completed yearly as part of report writing according to their judgement of each child’s attainment in the units, either working towards or meeting the age-related expectation.

Children will leave St Francis De Sales with a thorough grounding in a range of techniques and media for drawing, sculpting and printing, and an understanding of the language for describing and criticising art and design. The cultural capital of this effective education in art and design will have benefits across the entirety of their school experience, from more effective and less effortful diagrams and illustrations in maths and sciences, to a deeper critical understanding of art and propaganda studied in history. Moreover, they will have been afforded the opportunity to explore and express themselves, their identities, feelings and thoughts, and through repeated, positive cycles of evaluation and revisiting ideas and techniques, a resilient growth-mindset regarding their potential to further develop their skills and knowledge.