Curriculum Area - Art & Design

Mrs M Watt (Infant School) and Miss G Payne (Junior School) are our Art and Design Curriculum Leaders.

Intent

We recognise that Art and Design stimulates creativity and imagination. It provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a special way of understanding and responding to the world. It enables children of all abilities to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form, pattern and different materials and processes.

We encourage children to be curious, to explore ideas and meanings through the work of a range of artists and designers. Through learning about the roles and functions of art, they can explore the impact it has had on contemporary life and that of different times and cultures. The appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts enriches all our lives.

Implementation

Learning overviews have been created for every topic covered during the year (one per term). The plans identify:

• The core theme which is used as the basis for cross-curricular learning
• The main art and design subject knowledge to be covered in relation to the theme
• Key art and designs skills to be covered during the unit of work

Teachers refer to the EYFS curriculum, the National Curriculum Programmes of Study and Key Skills and other relevant guidance including our curriculum progressions. Topic guides are shared with parents to inform them of the learning that their child will experience that term.

Medium Term Planning

For Foundation Subjects, a sequence of core lesson objectives have been identified to be covered as part of their theme. Teachers are encouraged to be flexible, and may choose to stagger or block lessons as they feel is most appropriate to the needs and interests of their class.

Weekly Planning includes:

• Specific learning goals and learning outcomes/success criteria, clearly showing progression in learning and skills across the week or block of work.
• Core learning goal, key skills areas and success criteria (differentiated skills descriptors)
• Outline teaching input
• Outline differentiated tasks for groups of children
• Assessment for learning opportunities

Our Distance Marking Sheets (DMS) allow space for annotation, which teachers use to make assessment notes and identify their guided groups for the following lessons.

Curriculum Enrichment

From Foundation Stage through to Year 6, opportunities will be taken to extend and enrich the curriculum beyond the statutory requirements through:

• the use of the school grounds, the locality and the wider environment;
• themed weeks, e.g. STEM week, Arts Week
• educational visits;
• drama workshops and other visitors, e.g. artists
• support of parents.

At Chalfont St Giles Village School, we provide learning opportunities for the needs of individual children of all genders from all ethnic and social groups, including the most able and those who are experiencing learning difficulties. We aim to enable all pupils to make progress by setting suitable learning challenges and responding to each child’s different needs. Assessment against the learning objectives allows us to consider each child’s attainment and progress against expected levels.

Impact

We strive to ensure that our children’s attainment and progress in foundation subjects is in line with or exceeding their potential when we consider the varied starting points of children. We measure this carefully using a range of materials, but always considering the expectations set.   We have high aspirations and aim for all children to be academically and physically prepared for the next stage of their education and ready for life in Modern Britain and the wider world. As children progress throughout the school, they develop deeper art and design subject knowledge and skills, they use their imagination to express and communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings. The Children also regularly examine the work of other artists, discussing and thinking critically about their work as well as using them to inform their own work.

We follow Kapow for our Art and Design Technology curriculum. Details of coverage and units can be found in the learning overviews section, and below.