Art

We believe that if we open our hearts and minds to the possibilities each and every one of us, no matter how small, can make a difference in our school and beyond.  The parable of the Mustard seed teaches us that God can do a lot with a little!  At St Michael’s school we passionately believe that every child has a unique, inner creativity.  Through creative experiences, all of your young children will learn and grow as artists and be capable of finding their inner creative voice, which will be encouraged and celebrated.

How will the children learn and grow in Art?

We offer an arts curriculum where children begin to experience and develop an understanding of the elements of art and the skills and techniques that can be used.

Where creativity and imagination will be stimulated and challenged.

We intend to develop confidence and self-esteem in both the design and production of creative work, where processes as well as end products are celebrated.

We will allow children time to explore and experiment to play with materials, processes and ideas.

Experimentation always precedes work that is focused on producing a more finished outcome.

We intend to encourage our children to explore relationships between their own ‘making’ practice and their appreciation and knowledge of established works or art, craft and design.

Through skilful questioning we aim to develop higher-order thinking skills and a deeper analysis for our children to be able to discuss the works of artists, designers and art and design works.

They will be encouraged to express a balanced and reasoned opinion and recognise that there are alternative perspectives.

We will watch how our children engage with their work, see what they do, listen to what they say and take an interest in what they produce, using talk to introduce and extend technical and critical vocabulary.

We believe there to be a direct correlation between the quality of talk and the quality of children’s work.

We consider assessment in Art a holistic process, which will occur during every art lesson through conversation with pupils and observation of their work.

How do we make this happen?

Pupils will be given the opportunity to explore the visual and tactile elements, materials and processes used in making art, craft and design and the differences and similarities in the work of artists, crafts people and designers in different times and cultures.  We follow the AccessArt Scheme to ensure this.

AccessArt works to inspire & enable high quality visual arts teaching, learning & practice. We will use a variety of artefacts and pictures to talk informally with children about colour, shapes and what things are made of and link chosen artists closely to processes and themes and children’s interest.

We will develop a rich visual awareness by allowing our children to explore the visual elements of shape, line, pattern, colour, form, space, tone and texture.  These elements will also be explored through short activities designed to scaffold larger creative projects.

As the children become familiar with the concepts and their practical manifestations, they will make connections, form preferences and begin to use them more coherently in their own work.  They will recognise the visual qualities in art, design or craft objects.

They will learn to manipulate them in similar ways as they experiment with new materials and techniques. Links to our topics will be made where appropriate.  Occasionally artists will be invited in to work with all the children.

A sketch book will be introduced for Key Stage 1 to allow the children to explore with freedom, the skills experienced in art lessons.  Children will be given ownership of these sketch books and teachers will use ‘talk’ to extend child’s vocabulary and encourage self-evaluation.

Art lessons will have a focus but are considered part of a creative pathway to an end goal with each child’s pathway being led by their own creativity.

Planning and expected outcomes will take into consideration those children with additional needs and any other children identified as needing additional support to access the curriculum.  Planning will be modified where appropriate.

How do we know this has made a difference?

At St Michael’s school, our children will be able to talk about their own work, work of others and the work of other artists, craft makers and designers and to understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms. The carefully planned experiences scaffolding a systematic way to learn a skill or practice a process gives our children confidence to express their ideas in art and design.  The children’s progress in art and design is tracked over four areas – EXPLORING AND DEVELOPING, USING MATERIALS, EVALUATING and CONTROL and EXPERTISE.

By the end of Key Stage One the children will have developed critical appraisal skills; developing an appropriate vocabulary to help them evaluate and analyse their creative works and the works of others.   They will be able to track their own progress through sketch books and feel a  sense of achievement.