The skills and knowledge that children will develop throughout each art topic are mapped across each year group and throughout the school to ensure progression. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that children understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists that they are learning about and being inspired by. This enables links to other curriculum areas, including humanities, with children developing a considerable knowledge of individual artists as well as individual works and art movements. A similar focus on skills means that children are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practice and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, printing, textiles and sculpture.
The school have worked closely with local artists and used the local area to support creative work.
Classroom and corridor displays reflect the children’s sense of pride in their artwork and this is also demonstrated by creative outcomes across the wider curriculum. The school environment also celebrates children’s achievements in art and demonstrates the subject’s valued status in the school, with outcomes decorating the walls, corridors and entrance area. Teachers use the progression document to assess pupils learning before during and after a topic recording the outcomes for the subject leader. Pupils assess what they know at the start of a topic and what they have learned by the end using strategies such as mind mapping.
