Button Lane Primary School

Only the best is good enough

Art and Design

Art Lead - Miss Todd 

Intent

Our Art and Design curriculum aims to inspire all children and to enrich their creativity and imagination.  We believe in supporting our children to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets and have ensured there is clear progression throughout each year group. We aim to widen our children's world and to encourage and provide a wide range of experiences in the arts as part of and in addition to the curriculum. We expose all our children to the arts, giving them a chance to experience and participate in a wide range of creative activities and events.

We want our children to recognise themselves as artists and to develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own pieces of art. We allow our children the opportunity to experiment in an environment, which is safe and where there are no right or wrong answers. A space where they can express themselves creatively, build upon self-esteem and develop their resilience. 

Through learning about the work of other artists,  our children are supported in being creative and to experiment with the formal elements of art including colour, shape and form, pattern, tone, texture and line.  Furthermore, it widens and enriches their view on the world. We give our children the opportunity to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond. This develops their appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage within our local community.  Throughout our curriculum, we work hard to create confident, independent artists who can articulate their own creative journeys, supporting them to reflect and evaluate their work and that of others. We encourage experimentation, risk and innovation and we aim to be less focussed on the outcome and more focussed on the creative journey, resulting in pride for what they have achieved.

 We aim to introduce our children at Button Lane to an appreciation of the arts that will last a lifetime.

 

Implementation

Our curriculum meets the end of key stage attainment targets from the National Curriculum. Teachers use the ‘Kapow'  published scheme of work as a starting point for the planning of their Art and Design lessons, which are often richly linked to engaging contexts in other subjects and topics. This scheme forms the starting point and has been selected as it meets the National Society for Education in Art and Designs progression competencies. 

Knowledge and skills are mapped across each topic and year group to ensure systematic progression (see below). Key skills are revisited with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model, allowing our children to build on their previous learning. Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into our units, supporting our children in learning how to make their own creative choices and decisions, so that their art outcomes, whilst still being knowledge-rich, are unique to the pupil and personal. Our lessons are always practical and encourage experimental and exploratory learning with children using sketchbooks to document their ideas and creative journey.

The curriculum has been broken down into 5 key strands, with core principles running through each area. These strands are revisited within every unit across school:

  • Making skills
  • Formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour) our children have the opportunity to learn and practise skills discretely. The knowledge and skills from these units are then applied throughout the other units in the scheme.
  • Knowledge of artists
  • Evaluating

Impact

Assessment is used as a tool to inform our teaching and learning and to measure the impact of the curriculum we have created. We vary our approach to assessment to ensure it is tailored towards each subject. It takes place purposefully and meaningfully at key points across the year.

We assess each Art and Design unit in the following ways:

  • Observational assessments take place during art lessons
  • A knowledge catcher at the beginning of each unit to assess prior knowledge and at the end of the project to review progress 
  • Daily reviews to assess prior knowledge and starting points at the beginning of each lesson 
  • Low stakes end of unit quiz to assess the key knowledge and end points 
  • Moderation within school using the pupils books, observations and end of unit projects/outcomes using clear descriptors 
  • Pupil Voice

Conversations between subject leaders and class teachers take place to ensure that standards across the curriculum are monitored and reported annually to staff,  parent’s and  governors

Artsmark Gold Award

We have been awarded the Artsmark Gold Award by the Arts Council England. Please visit our dedicated Artsmark Award page for more detail.

Art Gallery

Art in the Community

We have worked closely with Manchester Art Gallery on a number of occasions and pupils have paid many visits to the gallery meeting renowned artists including Naomi Kendrick and Kate Gaudy.

The inspirational Naomi Kendrick came into our school, leading an eight week project. Pupils in KS2 accessed the project which aimed to develop resilience and give the children a sense of ownership of a final piece. The final piece of artwork is displayed in the Assembly Hall for all to see.

Art Exhibition

We are very proud to have hosted our own Art Exhibition in our school. All the children have worked very hard creating a range of street art pieces. These were then framed and displayed in our school for our parents and children to enjoy! Take a look at our work.