Coppice Farm Primary School

INTENT - what does the Art and Design curriculum intend to do?

We intend for our art curriculum to build secure knowledge and skills.

To ensure that children have secure knowledge and skills, all of our art lessons have carefully planned retrieval tasks to deepen and reinforce prior learning. Throughout the school, skills progress to challenge and develop children’s knowledge.

The curriculum has been carefully planned to develop and build skills right from Early Years through to Year 6. Children are encouraged to think critically and to see themselves as an artist by evaluating and justifying their artwork. We encourage positivity by allowing children to express what they enjoyed about their artistic journey.

We intend for our curriculum to develop every child as an artist.

At Coppice Farm, we offer a rich and engaging art curriculum that aims to support all children in seeing themselves as an artist, and uses art to explore and express themselves. Our school values play a crucial part in our art curriculum to ensure every child makes progress. Children are supported to be resilient and motivated learners that take an active role in their learning.

Through school, children use a wide range of tools and resources to create art, which supports confidence and independence. All children are encouraged to experiment and take risks, learning from and reflecting on mistakes, building on resilience. All children are encouraged to experiment and take risks, learning from and reflecting on mistakes, building on resilience.

We intend for our curriculum to be inclusive and supportive of all learners so that every child can excel.  

We intend for our art curriculum to be inclusive by using adaptive practice and clear modelling to support all pupils. Our art lessons are planned around three overarching big ideas, history of art, mastering techniques and developing ideas, which means that every child has a high-quality skill set to support them throughout life.

Through the use of a range of tools and resources, children can access learning and express themselves in their own way. Our curriculum values everyone’s individual ideas and backgrounds, and ensures that children feel represented and supported as artists, by studying the work of a range of artists from different walks of life.

IMPLEMENTATION -  how is the curriculum implemented?

When delivering the creative curriculum at Coppice Farm there is a real focus on teaching the children new skills and techniques.  Our long-term and medium-term plans map out the themes covered each term for each key stage. These plans define what we will teach and ensure an appropriate balance and distribution of work across each term. Our curriculum ensures that children across all key stages are being introduced to artists from different cultures, time periods and varying art styles. 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. 

All staff follow a clear planning structure which promotes; 'making choices', 'planning and reflecting' and children 'creating and evaluating' their own outcomes. This systematic approach to the planning and development of artistic skills means that children are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practise and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles and sculpture. Children also learn to understand and apply the key principles of art: line, tone, texture, shape, form, space, pattern, colour, contrast, composition, proportion and perspective. 

The opportunity for children to refine and develop their techniques over time is supported by effective lesson sequencing and progression between year groups. Each new unit of work begins with a recap of the previous related knowledge from previous years.  This helps children to retrieve what they have learnt in the earlier sequence of the programme of study, and ensures that new knowledge is taught in the context of previous learning to promote a shift in long term memory.  Key vocabulary for the new topic is also introduced as part of this unit introduction. 

As a school we are also committed to creating co-ordinated whole-school project work ensuring that Art and Design is given high status in the curriculum.  At the start of each school year all children participate in a whole school project which is then displayed in school.

IMPACT -  what progress will children make?

Through following clear and comprehensive medium-term plans, in line with the National Curriculum, it expected that teaching and learning will show progression across all key stages within the strands of Art and Design. Subsequently, more children will achieve age related expectations in Art at the end of their cohort year and Key Stage. It is our aim that children will retain knowledge and skills taught within each unit of work, remember these and understand how to use and apply these in their own art work, whilst beginning to understand what being in ‘artist’ means.

At Coppice Farm Primary School, we are able to measure the impact that Art and Design has had for all children by:

• Determining the extent to which objectives are met within each lesson and overall, at the end of each unit.
• Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
• Images of the children’s practical learning including classroom displays that reflect the children’s sense of pride in their artwork.
• The creative outcomes across the wider curriculum. 
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Regular book reviews by the Art & Design lead and opportunity for discussions with class teachers on their children’s work.

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