Brushwood Junior School
Art and Design
Curriculum Documents
Intent
At Brushwood our aims are to deliver a high-quality art and design education that will inspire and challenge pupils as well as build on their prior knowledge and skills to create their own art works. Our Art and design scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. It is our intention that pupils are given every opportunity to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learn about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond.
Through meeting the National Curriculum attainment targets for KS2, pupils are taught:
- to create sketch books to record their observations and use them to review and revisit ideas
- to improve their mastery of art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpture with a range of materials [for example, pencil, charcoal, paint, clay]
- about great artists, architects and designers in history.
Our scheme also covers the National Society for Education in Art and Design’s progression competencies.
Implementation
Our curriculum is based on the Kapow Primary scheme which is designed with five strands that run throughout. These are: Generating ideas, Using sketchbooks, Making skills (including the formal elements of line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour), Knowledge of artists, and Evaluating and analysing.
Units of lessons are sequential, allowing children to build their skills and knowledge, applying them to a range of outcomes. The formal elements, a key part of the National Curriculum, are also woven throughout units. Key skills are revisited again and again with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model. This allows pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Units in each year group are organised into four core areas: Drawing, Painting and mixed-media, Sculpture and 3D, and Craft and design.
Our units fully scaffold and support essential and age appropriate, sequenced learning, and are flexible enough to be adapted to form cross-curricular links with your own school’s curriculum. Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into our units, supporting students 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.
Lessons are always practical in nature and encourage experimental and exploratory learning with our pupils using sketchbooks to document their ideas. Lessons are adapted to suit the needs of all pupils in the class, supporting and stretching learning.
Opportunities to enrich the art and design curriculum can include, theme days or weeks, workshops led by specialists, extra-curricular clubs and visits to galleries.
Impact
Our curriculum is designed in such a way that children are involved in the evaluation, dialogue and decision making about the quality of their outcomes and the improvements they need to make. By taking part in regular discussions and decision-making processes, children will not only know facts and key information about art, but they will be able to talk confidently about their own learning journey, have higher metacognitive skills and have a growing understanding of how to improve.
Children:
- Produce creative work, exploring and recording their ideas and experiences.
- Are proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.
- Evaluate and analyse creative works using subject-specific language.
- Know about great artists and the historical and cultural development of their art.
- Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Art and design.
Art Theme Week
During the Summer Term 2023 we celebrated Art by having a theme week in school. The children took part in a range of exciting activities including tie dye, marbling, quilling, Art attack, paisley art, henna, sculptures and many more.
We were joined by a fantastic local artist, Niki Bell and took part in workshops focused on an artist. They were inspiring!
The week culminated with a fabulous Art Exhibition celebrating the artist talents of all the children at Brushwood, we were so proud of all their hard work!
