Art & Design

Art and Design Mission

Here at Beech Street Primary School, our mission is that Art and Design will engage, inspire and challenge all pupils, with the knowledge and skills to make, experiment, create and evaluate their own works of art, craft and design in 2D, 3D and on-screen. Throughout this process, we will teach the formal elements of Art and encourage pupils to appreciate the work of artists and craftspeople. As pupils’ progress, we aim to develop the ability to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of Art and Design.

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Our Intent

 At Beech Street Primary School, our intent is to provide an exciting and inspiring sequence of lessons in each year group. It was with this in mind that we chose to follow the KAPOW scheme of learning, which provides up-to-date access to high quality resources and videos for both staff and children, ensuring a clear understanding of each lesson and high quality outcomes are achieved. It provides a clear framework of lessons, which build upon skills gained and allows for the development of skills over time.   

We ultimately intend to provide our children with the skills needed to become creative thinkers by the end of Key Stage Two, therefore having a solid foundation for their journey at High School and either the world of further education and/ or employment.

Implementation of our Curriculum

Through our chosen curriculum we teach all pupils in Key stage One to: 

• use a range of materials creatively to make art works
• experience many different forms of art techniques and to develop and share their ideas, experiences, and imagination in both 2D and 3D forms
• develop skills over time through a wide range of Art and Design techniques, through the teaching of formal elements
• know about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, making links to their own work where possible
• begin to explore the use of a sketchpad as a place to record ideas, explore techniques and create works of art  

At Key Stage Two, we extend pupils’ learning further by teaching all pupils to:

• create sketch books to record their observations, ideas, explore techniques and to review and revisit ideas
• improve their Art and Design techniques with a range of materials through teaching of formal elements
• about artists, architects, and designers both contemporary and from history, which have shaped our rich cultural heritage  

Assessment

On a termly basis, teaching staff will assess the children on their understanding of the Art and Design objectives covered in each unit of work. Children will be assessed against 3 criteria: working towards, working at, or working above age related expectations.

Links to other areas of the Curriculum

Children will be taught to use and appreciate Art and Design, through other curriculum areas where possible, whether this be researching artists and craftspeople on the internet and presenting findings through Power Point Presentations in Computing, using Art as evidence in History or RE, developing teamwork skills in PSHE, or developing pupils’ understanding of shape, space, colour and line in Mathematics activities, such as symmetry, rotation or translation. The opportunities to use and apply Art and Design in the curriculum are endless and our teaching staff have the flexibility to apply this knowledge and develop these skills within their teaching, as they see appropriate to their planning and pupils.

Differentiation/SEND

We recognise that in all classes children have a wide range of abilities in Art and Design and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children. We achieve this by:

• setting tasks that are open-ended and allow for a variety of responses
• setting tasks of increasing difficulty, where needed
• grouping children in mixed ability groups to encourage support and the sharing of ideas and opinions from their peers
• providing resources of different complexity depending on the ability of the child
• using teaching assistants, to support children individually or in groups

Impact

The Art lead will monitor the impact of the subject through Learning Walks, pupils’ sketchpads, monitoring of assessments and discussions about the subject with pupils. Feedback will be given to the Senior Leadership Team and support will be provided when required.

Our long term planning (2024)

Progression of skills and knowledge (2024)

Progression of vocabulary by year group (2024)