Art and Design

 Art Curriculum Overview

 Rationale

The Art department believes that Art is a vital and integral part of every pupil’s education. It provides them with opportunities to develop a range of skills in which they can share and express their individual creativity, whilst learning about and making links with a wide spectrum of different types of art in our society.

Art contributes to children’s personal development in creativity, independence, confidence, judgement, and self-reflection. Moreover, it enables pupils to develop a natural sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them and therefore links strongly to our school core values. The focus is in developing proficiency in drawing, painting, understanding the formal elements, all with the overall aim of developing a rigorous understanding, critical awareness and inspiration of Art and Design.

We believe that Art lessons should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, providing them with the ability to invent and create their own individual pieces of art. Students will explore many different artists, cultures, materials and techniques, building their confidence and refining their skills in order to produce artwork that they are proud of.

Intent

At St Aidan’s Academy Art and Design is an important part of pupil’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Art and Design provides all pupils with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas. Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of creativity. We believe that a high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, providing them with the knowledge and technical skills to experiment, invent and create their own individual pieces 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, this reflects on our history, contribution to culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. 

The School is founded on deeply held principles that every child has the right to a first-class education and in order to achieve this we are committed to:

Providing an art and design curriculum which ensures that all pupils:

• Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
• Become proficient in drawing, painting and other art, craft and design techniques
• Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
• Have knowledge of great artists, craft makers and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

The non-negotiable knowledge is identified for each year group in Key Stage 3, this is based around learning key factual information about artwork, artists and cultures. There are a wide range of disciplinary skills to compliment the curriculum and support this knowledge. See overview below.

The curriculum journey is articulated to pupils through the Learning Journeys stored in pupil’s exercise books and it builds up substantive and disciplinary knowledge.

Implementation

Securing a strong knowledge and skills-based Framework is the main rationale of the Art curriculum at St. Aidan's Academy. Pupils will gain a broad and balanced knowledge of Art, Craft and Design with a mixture of local, national and worldwide cultural links. Art history is an integral part of all projects. It is essential that pupils understand what came before to lead the way for others.

We teach an Art curriculum, which allows children to express their creative imagination as well as providing them with opportunities to practice and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, printing, ceramics, photography and sculpture. This is supported through the studying of key artists and cultures that inspire their development as artists and knowledge of their work.

Lessons are taught on a weekly basis and involve studying existing pieces of Art, sketching aspects of these, with a particular focus on the necessary skills. Artist and cultural inspiration inform their ideas, before completing a final piece. The pupils will then be given constructive feedback, this is based on the knowledge and skills they have secured and what they need to do next.

The curriculum has been designed to allow pupils to have a diverse and rich understanding of Art.

Impact

Pupils developed and detailed knowledge/skills will enable them to achieve well, allow them to build up comprehensive Art vocabulary, enhance their confidence with a variety of materials and techniques and generally prepare them for the rigours of further study.

Knowledge is built upon from Year 7 onwards and is tested through quizzes, questioning in lessons and at assessment points. Assessments give sufficient feedback to pupils in order for them to improve and answer reflective questions.

We aspire to ensure that all pupils have the confidence, motivation and appropriate skills and knowledge to pursue Art related qualifications and careers in the future. 

Our end of Year GCSE Art exhibition is testament to this and showcases some of our wonderfully talented pupils. Art and design is a valued subject and pupil’s artwork is displayed everywhere throughout the school as a reminder of pupils past and present that have contributed to our embracement of arts, culture and diversity.