At Hill Farm Primary School, we aim to ignite children’s creativity and imagination by providing visual, tactile and sensory experiences which equip them with the skills and knowledge to communicate opinions about artwork, apply a variety of media and respond by making their own art works.
Art is all about children experimenting, designing and expressing themselves in a visual way. This includes looking at the world around them, learning about artists, art techniques and other cultures and responding by making their own art works. We recognise that a high-quality art education can build pupils’ ability to ‘appreciate and interpret what they observe, communicate what they think and feel, or make what they imagine and invent’.
Through our high-quality art curriculum, we support children in developing ideas, presenting their ideas using sketchbooks, learning about artists and evaluating and analysing our art pieces. In addition, we provide children with knowledge and skills linked to six media: collage, drawing, painting, sculpture, print-making, textiles.
The art substantive knowledge children will learn is mapped to ensure children build on prior learning and create art schemas that are linked via knowledge concepts, such as colour and the artist Paul Klee. Key takeaways are identified for each lesson and shared with children through knowledge organisers. This knowledge is cemented in children’s long-term memory through retrieval practice linked to artists, influences and media and reference to learning completed in previous year groups. Children will develop knowledge about colour, tone, space, line, pattern, texture, form and shape throughout their time at Hill Farm. Our curriculum recognises that activities which isolate the technique pupils are in the early stages of learning are important.
In Upper Key Stage 2, children begin to develop theoretical knowledge where pupils learn about the cultural contextual context about artists and their artwork. For example, recognising that an artist from the past used dark colours to reflect the context of the time period. Where appropriate, technology is used to isolate portions of work that illustrate the content our curriculum aims to help pupils learn. For example, children can make comparisons to Paul Klee’s use of shape and colour when using technology compared to paint.
At Hill Farm, we recognise the importance of providing opportunities for pupils to practise the building blocks of subject knowledge along the way. Our curriculum is designed to ensure pupils have sufficient repeated encounters with concepts and also have sufficient ‘in the moment’ practice when learning practical knowledge.
When children have developed greater expertise, our curriculum recognises that pupils may benefit from seeing examples of unfinished work and suggesting how to resolve them, taking part in longer projects and drawing on other forms of knowledge built through the curriculum.
In Year 3, children will complete a visit to a local art gallery and experience art first-hand. Throughout their time at school, children will also experience a visit from a local artist and will visit virtual museums dedicated to their artist for that unit. In addition, showcases are used as an opportunity for children to present their artwork to their parents and the local community.
All teaching at Hill Farm is planned around our six principles of learning and teaching, which ensure every lesson is GREAT! Pupils experience engaging and purposeful experiences that promote learning and where the needs of every child is met through effective adaptive teaching strategies. As a Voice 21 school, our curriculum has a strong oracy focus which provides pupils with regular opportunities to learn to talk and to learn through talk. High expectations of oracy and vocabulary are embedded throughout our art curriculum.
The impact of our art curriculum is measured through continual assessments throughout each lesson against our art progression documents, retrieval practice and identified knowledge takeaways for each lesson. We check pupils’ evaluations and annotations to see if they have used the words for formal elements of art correctly and use this to inform future lessons.