Art Curriculum Statement
Curriculum Intent
The Art curriculum at Humberstone Infant and Junior Academies strives to inspire and challenge children through the rich opportunities and experiences offered throughout the curriculum, such as gallery visits for all year groups and expert-led workshops, which help to build children’s cultural capital. Art is taught discreetly in the specially designed art studio within the infant school and within the Art and DT studio in the juniors. It is important every child accesses the art curriculum within the specialist teaching spaces, ensuring that all children have the opportunity to be expressive and develop their artistry.
Pupils work with high quality materials and with external artists to ensure that they have access to expert teachers to raise aspirations and enhance opportunities for creativity. The curriculum is broken down, but is not limited to, the key areas of making, which include: drawing, painting, printing, sculpture and textiles. These key areas are revisited regularly throughout the well sequenced curriculum to allow children to build upon their prior knowledge, deepening their understanding and supporting progression in each subject area. At Humberstone, we aim to create confident artists who are able to express themselves creatively through a range of media, using their knowledge and skills to create unique and successful final outcomes. We have high aspirations for all children with the vision of ‘every child as an artist’, developing their own style, which is reflected within their work. Lessons are inclusive and adaptive and are suited to support all pupils to reach their full potential and create their own unique and individual pieces of art. Children are encouraged to think critically and to articulate their ideas confidently and clearly using a wide range of mediums. Across the school children are able to demonstrate their knowledge through the technical vocabulary they use and apply accurately when discussing their work. Children are articulate and knowledgeable and are able to talk confidently about Art as a discipline and understand its place in the wider world.
The Art curriculum is based on the National Curriculum objectives and goes beyond these to further break down objectives into key concepts which the children will revisit multiple times throughout their time in school. This ensures consistency and full coverage of all the areas of making, starting within EYFS. Teachers use the Art curriculum route map which identifies essential knowledge and vocabulary which must be taught within lessons, as well as the knowledge that has been previously taught to be revisited within the sequence. Our curriculum covers a range of diverse artists and art styles from a range of time periods. For example, we study painters such as Yves Klein, Frida Kahlo, Claude Monet and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as sculptors such as Andy Goldsworthy, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. In EYFS there are opportunities for all pupils, regardless of age, stage or ability to create high quality transient art pieces both inside the classroom and outside using natural materials and loose parts. We build the children’s disciplinary knowledge of the subject by exploring the focus artist through the lens of ‘traditional, contemporary or modern art’ within each unit. By the end of their time at primary school children will leave having an appreciation of art and a well embedded schema of art periods, styles, areas of making and a diverse knowledge of artists.
Implementation
Art lessons are carefully planned and sequenced and work towards a high quality outcome that has been carefully planned and is identified within the scheme of work. For example, Year 6 students create beautiful mixed media sculptures inspired by the work on Barbara Hepworth, Year 4 pupils explore the work of Ann Roth as use this to influence their own woven landscape. In EYFS pupils learn about local artist, Angela Harding and her artwork inspired by the British countryside, before creating their own British bird artwork using a variety of mediums. Within Art, teachers plan lessons using the sequence of; exploration, artist study, review of prior knowledge, explicit instruction of new skill, making and evaluating. Each step is recorded in the children’s sketchbooks, where they are encouraged to display their learning creatively and outcomes and proudly displayed around the school and within public galleries.
Alongside the diverse curriculum, all year groups visit a significant gallery as part of the Art curriculum to broaden their experience and understanding of what it means to create art and be an artist, as well as to develop their cultural capital. In KS1, the children visit local galleries and sculpture parks within the city, whilst KS2 explore significant galleries beyond our locality, such as the Hepworth gallery in Wakefield and the Fitzwilliam gallery in Cambridge. Each gallery has been specifically chosen to showcase the art being studied in each year group, as well as the significance of the gallery to the discipline of art. Opportunities are provided for children to work alongside experts within the field of art and design and to study a range of diverse experts and significant works in these fields. These artists form part of lesson sequences and notable works are highlighted in curriculum documents. A culture of excellence is demonstrated through the display of Art outcomes during exhibitions, around the school and within classrooms. Children can talk about art, the process and their final outcomes with pride and confidence.
Impact
By the end of EYFS children have had repeated opportunities to develop their understanding of colour theory and to apply their learning to both process and product based art. They have worked with all areas of making and have ample opportunities to express themselves creatively with different mediums, both inside and outside of the classroom. Through carefully planned opportunities, children are able to build on experiences and creative development in the EYFS as they move through the school. The high-quality EYFS practise develops children’s interest in art, their imaginations and provides the children with the foundations to be successful artists in the future.
At the end of their time in the Infant School the children have worked with various different mediums and have been given opportunities to develop their creative skills and thinking through the range of artists, paradigms, art styles, mediums and techniques studied. Children build on their understanding of colour theory throughout the curriculum and within their printing, painting and watercolour work. The areas of making, which include: drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture are taught and revisited and children area ready to start Junior School as confident and competent artists.
By the end of Key Stage 2, children have learned about a range of artists across time in the field of contemporary, traditional and modern art. They are able to discuss art through the disciplinary lens of contemporary, modern and traditional art and use subject specific vocabulary to articulate their thoughts on choices made by the artist. The children at Humberstone Infant and Junior Academies will have visited a range of significant art galleries to develop their understanding of what it means to create art and be an artist. They will have had opportunities to refine, develop and critique their own practise and create a wide range of art in different forms and areas of making including: paintings, drawings, printing, sculptures and textiles. Children will understand the process an artist goes through in order to create a final piece, as well as the broad spectrum of art itself. Monitoring demonstrates that knowledge is embedded as children are able to talk confidently about current and previous learning. They are able to make links between artists, art styles and pieces of work across all year groups and talk passionately about the creative opportunities and processes they have had.
The impact of the Art Curriculum is measured in a number of ways including, through book scrutinies, learning walks, pupil interviews and the analysis of final outcomes that show children’s experience and expertise in each area. Because the children have the opportunity to revisit each specialism frequently throughout their time at Humberstone Academy, monitoring reveals that children are able to draw upon prior knowledge with ease as prior learning is committed to long-term memory. All children are challenged to think creatively and become critical thinkers to self evaluate and improve their work. The design of the curriculum ensures that children revisit and build upon skills within different areas of making. In EYFS the children sculpt with playdough to recreate artwork by Yves Klein and use natural resources to create sculpture work inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. In year 2 children create foam bird sculptures, building on their early understanding of “what is sculpture”. They visit a local sculpture trail at a gallery and work with experts to create nature inspired clay sculptures. In KS2 the children re-explore the concept of sculpture through the work of Henry Moore and visit his famous works at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. In year 5 and 6 children begin to work with mixed media, drawing upon their learning from their time at primary school to create abstract sculptures inspired by artists such as Calder and Hepworth. Models of excellence are exhibited throughout the school and within the wider community, art is celebrated and annually children are encouraged and supported to enter local and national competitions.