INTENT – to what do we aspire for our children?
‘Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.’
National Curriculum 2014
At St Werburgh’s Primary, we work together towards excellence, underpinned by the following values:
Kindness
● We are broad, diverse and inclusive; celebrating artists from all cultures from all around the world.
● We are respectful and informed critics.
● We understand that art can be used to see and interpret the world through different perspectives and everyone’s art will be unique.
Curiosity
● We feel empowered by exploring a range of artists who look like us and have similar experiences to us.
● The curriculum design builds complexity and challenge through a spiral model allowing us to progress across the disciplines; as well as thinking like an artist.
● We are able to talk about our progress as artists.
Commitment
● We are ambitious and aspirational; gaining a greater understanding of what the arts contribute to the world.
● We produce high quality artwork: this is valued and celebrated and children are proud of the artwork they produce.
● We approach art learning with resilience and an open-mind.
Aims of the Art Curriculum
● To develop art knowledge through the 5 disciplines (drawing, textiles and collage, painting, print-making and sculpture) but also learning about artists and culture.
● To harness and develop each child’s creativity through an inspiring and challenging art curriculum.
● To contextualise art across other subjects through the study of significant artists and cultures.
● To learn new skills, experiment with new resources and ways of expressing themselves and take risks with their artwork.
● To develop young artists who can communicate their ideas both physically and verbally using a rich vocabulary and confident oracy skills.
● To develop young artists who feel empowered and passionate to engage with art outside of school and later in life (visiting art galleries and taking part in workshops).
Key Concepts:
In addition to the core knowledge required to be successful within each discipline, the curriculum outlines key aspects of artistic development. This is known as Working Artistically and each module will focus on developing different aspects of these competencies:
| Shape | Line | Colour | Value | Space | Texture | Form |
| Shape is a flat (2D) area surrounded by an outline or edge. | Lines are used to show movement and mood. | Colour is used to convey atmosphere and mood. | Value is the intensity of colour and depends on the amount of white added. | Space in artwork makes a flat image look like it has form. | Texture is the look and feel of a surface. | Artists use form when they create sculptures. These are 3D shapes. |
Oracy:
At St Werburgh’s Primary, we recognise the vital role that oracy plays in the lives of our children, both during their time in primary school and for the rest of their lives. Research shows that oracy not only acts as a powerful tool for learning but is a key skill in itself which employers actively seek. By ensuring that children have explicit opportunities to develop their oracy skills as well as opportunities to learn through oracy across the curriculum, we aspire to create young adults who are able to work confidently, articulately and collaboratively.
We promote oracy through Art by giving opportunities for children to discuss their opinions on art, reflecting on their own pieces of work and explaining their processes, thoughts and ideas. We also teach art specific vocabulary that allows the children to expand on their explanations, discussions and debates and share their ideas when thinking about their own artwork and the artwork of others.
Diversity:
At St Werburgh’s, we are working towards removing biases, stereotypes and false narratives in Art Education. Alongside the artists that are set out in CUSP, teachers seek to teach a diverse range of artists to further broaden children’s experiences of art. We believe that engaging children with artists who look like them, have similar experiences, and come from similar backgrounds is a great source of inspiration and empowerment.
EYFS
Children in Reception are given the opportunity to explore a range of mediums, materials and techniques. These include painting with brush stroke as well as printing with paint and shapes, using glue and a range of paper and materials to create collage. Children will use different techniques such as tearing paper, cutting with scissors. We explore mediums such as clay and clay tools for sculpting. The children explore these mediums and techniques in their own way using their imagination and interest to guide them. They are supported to use their skills to draw and paint self portraits as well as make observational drawings and paintings of flowers, fruits and interesting objects such as shells. We study animal patterns and replicate these through painting and the use of chalks and pastels. Linking with DT, the children explore and create using 3D materials to join and build.
Long term sequence:
| Autumn | Spring | Summer | |
| YR |
● Drawing ● Painting ● Printing |
● Collage with paper ● Sculpting ● 3D materials |
● Observational drawing ● Collage with materials ● Water colour painting
|
| Year 1 |
● Drawing ● Painting |
● Printmaking ● Textiles |
● Collage ● 3D |
| Year 2 |
● Drawing ● Painting |
● Printmaking ● Textiles |
● Collage ● 3D |
| Year 3 |
● Drawing and painting ● Printmaking |
● Textiles and collage ● 3D |
● Painting ● Printmaking ● Revisit and combine techniques from across the year |
|
Year 4
|
● Drawing ● Printing |
● Printmaking and textiles ● 3D |
● Painting ● Drawing and textiles ● Revisit and combine techniques from across the year |
|
Year 5
|
● Drawing and painting ● Printmaking |
● Textiles and collage ● 3D |
● Painting ● Printmaking and Textiles ● Revisit and combine techniques from across the year |
| Year 6 |
● Drawing ● Painting and collage |
● Printmaking and textiles ● 3D |
● Painting ● Drawing and Textiles ● Revisit and combine techniques from across the year |
IMPLEMENTATION – how will we deliver the curriculum?
Linking curriculum and pedagogy:
It is our intention that pupils become a little more expert as they progress through the curriculum, accumulating and connecting substantive and disciplinary art knowledge. Our curriculum follows the principles of instruction, is guided by understanding how the memory works and cognitive load theory.
The CUSP Art curriculum at St Werburgh’s Primary School is organised into blocks with each block covering a particular set of artistic disciplines, including drawing, painting, printmaking, textiles, 3D and collage. Vertical progression in each discipline has been deliberately woven into the fabric of the curriculum so that pupils can revisit key disciplines throughout their Primary journey at increasing degrees of challenge and complexity.
Our lessons are underpinned by evidence research and cognitive science. The whole curriculum is ‘Connected’, ‘Cumulative’ and ‘Coherent’ and the progression is carefully sequenced
Lesson design:
Each lesson follows the model above.
● CONNECT to prior knowledge
● EXPLAIN new content, element of working scientifically and scientific vocabulary
● give and EXAMPLE of new learning
● Pupils ATTEMPT new learning with scaffolding
● APPLY new learning independently
● Pupils are CHALLENGED to integrate learning with prior knowledge
In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, Art is taught in afternoon blocks.
Every Art lesson will include most or all of the following depending on where they are in the design cycle (bold means every lesson):
● Explicit teaching of and recapping of vocabulary
● Stimulus used to engage (piece of art, artefacts, video)
● Exemplar sketchbooks used
● Knowledge note used to reduce split attention effect (dual-coded with both written and visual prompts)
● Focussed practical task with modelling
● Opportunities for discussion and purposeful talk
● Excellence in effort, technique and outcome highlighted and celebrated
● Respectful and knowledgeable use of materials
Children will produce work in their sketchbooks. We encourage children to take pride in these and encourage them to explore and experiment with materials and techniques as we value this as part of the Art process.
Curriculum enrichment:
● Passport of experiences which includes art experiences.
● Visit local exhibitions: Watershed, RWA, Arnolfini.
● St Werburgh’s have a good relationship with RWA (amongst other organisations) where they offer workshops and competitions throughout the year.
● Every year St Paul’s Carnival offers our children workshops to create head dresses and outfits.
● Year 6 take a local walk to view street art.
● Virtual Galleries used to explore art or specific artists.
Reading across the curriculum:
Within the lesson plans, connections to other subject areas for example history or English are listed, as are the links that are made in the lesson sequences, to works of literature.
Specific books and illustrators are recommended and are used as a stimulus for artwork and provide examples of artistic techniques and styles.
Art History: Background information is provided about the specific artists studied in the block. This information gives an insight into where the artist sits in art history and their influences.
There are also opportunities to explore additional reading in the school library bus.
SEND:
The curriculum at St Werburgh’s Primary is inherently designed to support pupils with SEND through universal quality first teaching.
This includes:
● High expectations and aspirations for all learners
● A carefully structured and sequenced curriculum, specifically designed around how pupils learn
● Pre-planned and focused direct vocabulary instruction
● Modelling and demonstration
● Chunked instructions which are supported by visuals and gestures
● The use of manipulatives and multi-sensory approaches to enhance the curriculum
● Review, recall, repetition and retrieval
● Frequent formative assessment as teachers check for understanding
● Accurate and regular feedback
However, we recognise some pupils need provision ‘additional to’ quality first teaching in order to reach their potential as an artist.
This includes:
● Carefully considered scaffolding
● Pre and post-teaching vocabulary
● Pre-planned management of cognitive load
● Explicit and chunked instructions and modelling
● Structured challenge, without ceilings
● Additional targeted adult support
● Pupils who have significant motor skill difficulties may require pencil grips or sloped surfaces to work on
In some instances, specialist adaptations are made to support the specific barriers of individual pupils.
IMPACT – how do we know our curriculum is effective?
Pupil Voice:
● Children will use art specific vocabulary and terminology
● They will talk about art specific concepts & knowledge
● Children will talk about the ‘why’ behind the learning and explain how learning builds on previous knowledge
● They will notice their progress regardless of their starting points
High quality outcomes:
Sketchbooks will:
● Show the artists journey
● Demonstrate pride and effort.
● Capture increasing understanding of artistic concepts and knowledge
● Demonstrate a clear sequence of learning
● Include taught vocabulary used correctly where appropriate
● Demonstrate that learners are thinking artistically
This will include high-quality displays in classrooms and communal areas, a celebration of artwork on our art-related Instagram account (@artsatstwerbs)
Assessment:
CUSP is designed and built on the premise that ‘learning equals a persistent change in the long term memory.’ Therefore, the assessment structures are designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum sometime after it has been taught.
Formative Assessment:
Pupils will be assessed formatively as each lesson progresses. Pupils will be given tasks from which the teachers will draw conclusions. Adaptations will then be made as a result of that evidence.
Strategies that might be used are:
● Making explicit the learning intention and success criteria
● Eliciting evidence of pupils’ prior knowledge
● Feeding back at the point of learning
● Inclusive questioning i.e. cold call, mini whiteboards
● Retrieval practice i.e. cumulative quizzing
Summative Assessment:
The curriculum is a progression model. Teachers will know whether students are making progress if they are learning more of the curriculum.
The CUSP curriculum is designed to ensure sequencing of core knowledge, vocabulary, substantive concepts and disciplinary knowledge. They will know more, and remember more with the taught curriculum content. Essentially they will be able to do more with this knowledge in carefully designed learning tasks.
This will be assessed using the Pupil Book Study approach; talking with pupils and looking at their books systematically to reveal:
● Content and knowledge
● Vocabulary
● How the pedagogy and taught curriculum helps/hinders their learning