Intent

At Priory Park Infant School, we value art as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Our art curriculum provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills, and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas.

We teach art -

• To develop children’s observational skills – building a greater awareness of the world by looking more closely

• To extend the child’s own creativity and imagination through exploration
• To allow children to communicate through art, to express their own ideas
• To give children experience of a range of media, and help them to acquire the skills necessary to use tools safely and effectively
• To help each child to develop an informed opinion of their likes and dislikes
• To encourage children to respond to the works of different artists, craft workers and designers from different times and cultures
• To enjoy the process of exploration as well as the finished product

Implementation

Art is taught through three threshold concepts:

• Develop ideas

Children explore a variety of media and materials to begin to understand their properties, and use what they have learnt in original ways, representing their own ideas, thoughts and feelings

In Years One and Two they will use their own sketch books to practise skills, as well as recording details as a reference source, and collecting visual information in order to experiment with ideas. They will be taught to use their sketch books to develop skills and gather information towards their end piece.

Children will learn to use the correct vocabulary when talking about their work. They will learn to review their work and identify what they might change or develop.

• Master techniques

Children will be taught drawing, painting, sculpture and printing.

As there are obvious links between art and other areas of the curriculum, much of the planning will be through topic work. But staff are aware of the place for art as a discrete subject, with its own skills and concepts to be taught.

There is a progression in skills taught, with opportunities to consolidate and revisit, before building on previous learning.

A variety of teaching styles will be used - there will be opportunities for collaborative as well as group work; children will be given time to refine and apply previous skills in planned lessons, as well as through continuous provision; children will be offered opportunities to work in different time scales and with a range of media; children will work from observation, imagination and memory.

• Take Inspiration from the Greats

Children will be given opportunities to look at the work of different artists, craft workers and designers from different times and cultures. They will be encouraged to talk about artists’ work using appropriate vocabulary, and to begin to compare and to see links between their own work and that of different artists.

Impact

We recognise that artwork for our children is not always about the end product, but about the process. It is the exploration that is vitally important in the acquisition of skills.

 Children’s sketch books are kept and passed on through the school as evidence of thought processes and skill acquisition.

Children’s work in art is regularly displayed and shows the progression between year groups.

Children are given a voice, so that they have opportunities to offer their opinions, likes and dislikes about art in our school, and asked what would help them to learn, and what they would like to extend.