Art and Design
Intent
All children are entitled to a high-quality Art and Design education, through which they are afforded opportunities for self-expression and creativity. Our Art curriculum fosters creative problem-solving and skill progression. It supports children with the development of motor skills, language skills, social skills, decision-making, risk-taking, and inventiveness.
Art provides children with the opportunity to develop critical thinking and the ability to interpret the world around us, globally and locally. The Art and Design curriculum connects children with their own culture and environment as well as with the wider world. Integrating art with other areas of the curriculum enables children to understand how Art and Design both reflect and shape history and contribute to cultures around the world.
Supporting children with their visual literacy, Art teaches children about colour, layout, perspective, and balance: all techniques that are necessary when presenting information in an increasingly visual and digital word.
All children have an entitlement to access the curriculum in its entirety, inclusive of SEND and vulnerable children whilst providing challenges for learners at all levels. Access to rich art experiences will enable children to develop knowledge and skills that will allow them to take advantage of opportunities and experiences, in later life. In doing so, Art is a powerful vehicle to encourage social mobility.
Implementation
We provide a high-quality Art and Design education by;
- Forging meaningful links between Art and the wider curriculum. Cross-curricular teaching enriches other areas of the curriculum and provides a context for meaningful art learning.
- Providing in-depth exploration of great/diverse artists and designers. Children are exposed to a wealth of inspirational artists and are encouraged to think critically in order to develop visual literacy skills.
- Teaching with an emphasis on skills progression through recapping and building upon skills acquired from previous learning. This is achieved with the support of Harbour’s skills progressions document. Our Art and Design curriculum is coherently planned and carefully sequenced throughout the school.
Entitlement
- Three units of Art and Design, are taught, every academic year.
- Children will access these units which focus on developing drawing, painting and printing/sculpture skills and allow children to explore a wide range of techniques and mediums.
- All children, across the school, will have the opportunity to develop ideas and creativity, skills and mastery of processes as well as knowledge of art (including that of artistic movements, specific artists and their techniques) and cultures.
EYFS
The EYFS staff team will plan for children to experience creative opportunities and develop art skills within the EYFS curriculum. Our youngest learners will have the opportunity to explore, experiment and communicate their ideas through colour and mark-making, using a variety of materials and tools. Being exposed to and playing with art mediums is an important first-step, before using them with greater intent and skilfulness.
KS1 and KS2
The key knowledge and skills for each unit of work, in each year group, are identified on the whole school knowledge and skills progression map. Units focus on developing specific art skills, through mediums/techniques which are distinctive to each Year group.
Year 1: drawing (wax crayon), painting (poster), printing
Year 2: drawing (colouring Pencils), painting (poster), sculpture
Year 3: drawing (oil pastels), painting (water colour), printing
Year 4: drawing (soft pastels), painting (acrylics), sculpture
Year 5: drawing (pencils), painting (watercolour), printing
Year 6: drawing (charcoal/chalks), painting (acrylic), sculpture
Impact
At Harbour, our aspiration is to nurture our Artists and to foster enjoyment, curiosity and appreciation of the visual world, both locally and globally. We want children to have developed enthusiasm for art and creativity, working both independently and collaboratively. Children will develop their competency with using a range of tools and techniques, becoming artists that can apply the skills and knowledge that they have developed throughout the years and respond critically to their own and other’s work. We aim to equip children with a range of skills to enable them to communicate effectively, through visual means, which can be applied into all areas of the curriculum. As such, our learners’ developing visual literacy skills are not only evidenced in their Art outcomes, but also the way in which they present their ideas in all subjects, whether this be an illustration to explain a scientific idea, models to explore a mathematical conjecture or the informed decisions our learners make when publishing their writing.
