Art and Design

Art and Design
at Sacred Heart Primary School

In every part of our curriculum, we build upon creativity and inspiration. These are both characteristics that we want our children to develop at Sacred Heart. Creativity is not just limited by what we draw and paints; it’s the way we respond to problems, and understand an ever-changing world around us. This links to being inspired learning, which we develop through engaging with a world-wide culture including new and contemporary art forms. Because of this, the intent of our curriculum is to inspire our children and equip them with a knowledge of the world around them. 

Our understanding of the world feeds into that creativity and inspiration. Children should be able to explore our world and experiment with all that the world has to offer; different materials, styles, textures, forms, patterns, and all of the mediums. Through all of this, children will explore the history behind some of the most notable artists, creators and architects, which will equip them to delve deeper into the emotions and meaning that help us to create art. Lastly, children will build their confidence to start the path towards being artists themselves. 

As importantly, our teaching team will demonstrate a passion for and a commitment to The Arts.  

Art Intent

Art is at the core of the development of our curriculum as we wish our children to express themselves and have access to a wide range of vocabulary. Because of this, at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School we aim to provide for our children a comprehensive Art education which prepares them for life and education after leaving our school and their next learning phase. We aim to create inquisitive, resilient, empathetic citizens who can utilise these skills across their lives and education, as well as being ambitious and recognise the comprehensive and positive impact that Art has in every aspect of their daily lives. Furthermore, we wish to ensure that our children have a sense of pride about themselves, what they create, and their place in the world.

The skills learnt in our Art curriculum will prepare our children for a life of evaluation and creativity, allowing them to independently explore and collaborate on a wide range of projects at the forefront of societal change. Our Art curriculum is designed to ensure we create:  

Creativity- at the forefront of art is our need to express ourselves. We want our children to have a variety of ways, and the confidence, to express themselves. Children will be exposed to a wide range of artistic techniques and given time to evaluate them so that they can build their vocabulary and find their own unique style. Our sketchbooks aim to support this.

Cultural Capital- In our curriculum our children gain a wealth of capital experience. As part of this, our children learn about the history of art, and famous artists, as well as how to evaluate them. This feeds into their development of their skills.

Vocabulary- Children will learn and use a wide range of vocabulary that will develop their understanding of key terms relating to the world around them, and subject specific vocabulary. This can be found on our website section.

Equal opportunities- Children will all have access to a range of opportunities to engage with new technology and the removal of barriers to learning for all of our children regardless of their experience and starting points within Art.

Art Implementation

We have broken our Art curriculum into three main strands, taken from the national curriculum.

Drawing- At the core of children’s expression is their ability to draw. This strand focuses on developing children’s observational skills and engaging children in a wide range of drawing activities and mediums from charcoal to graded pencils to found materials. In addition, children will learn about famous sketchers, and their varied techniques throughout history.

Colour- In this strand, children will explore how colour can and is used in art throughout history. Children will begin by exploring how to make colours, but will develop into using colour to express emotion.

Sculpture- 3d art is an important dynamic in modern art developments. Children will use a wide range of mediums and joining techniques to express themselves through sculpture.

Our Art scheme has clear progression of skills and knowledge within our curriculum, as well as further enrichment to our curriculum through local opportunities. Our progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills taught in all of the different year groups and how these are developed across the year to ensure that attainments targets are met in the progression of key Art skills.

Our policies clearly show how our Art curriculum covers the national curriculum attainment targets as well. Our curriculum supports this through its spiral design, where we regularly revisit and develop key concepts, skills and knowledge to ensure retention and development of complexity of these ideas. For instance, the idea of using correct observed colours in painting to expression of emotions through colour in surrealism.

In addition, our curriculum develops these skills from the foundation stages. Our children at all ages regularly interact and get to use technology in a range of activities. These work towards the Early Learning Goals of our children, and enrich their own experience of technology from a young age.

Our curriculum also incorporates cross-curricular links in all subjects. Children will throughout the curriculum make strong links with Art, including using a range of artistic mediums, and expressions, throughout all subjects. This ensures that children have an appreciation for how art enriches our lives on the daily basis, and can be used as a learning tool in its own regard.

To achieve all of this, our Art teaching includes a range of strategies from declarative to substantive knowledge. We ensure that our lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles. We ensure that all our children can challenge and stretch their own learning. We regularly audit our staff and pupil’s voice to continually develop, and guide how our curriculum changes.

We aim to enable all children to achieve to their full potential. This includes children of all abilities, social and cultural backgrounds, those with SEND and EAL speakers. We place particular emphasis on the flexibility technology brings to allowing pupils to access learning opportunities, particularly pupils with SEN.

Art Impact:

The impact of our curriculum is continually monitored through pupil voice, formative and summative assessment. We use a range of teacher assessment tools to monitor our children’s progress in art. Children are also encouraged to assess their, and their peers, work continually. 

Each lesson includes opportunities for teachers to assess the children’s learning, and we regularly use a variety of assessment methods to monitor what children have learned and retained. There are ample opportunities for children to record their learning in a variety of ways from quizzes to presentation to others. Our children leave our school equipped with a variety of skills and the knowledge of how to use them.