Art at Blakehill
Intent
At Blakehill, we follow Kapow Primary’s science scheme of work. Kapow Primary’s revised Art and design scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. Our scheme is written by experts in their field and designed to give pupils every opportunity to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about art and artists across cultures and through history.
Our scheme supports pupils to meet the National curriculum end of key stage attainment targets and has been written to fully cover the National Society for Education in Art and Design’s progression competencies. Kapow Primary is an Artsmark partner and is able to support schools on their Artsmark journey, inspiring children and young people to create, experience, and participate in great arts and culture.
The children at Blakehill should be given the chance to explore the work of a range of famous artists, both contemporary and also artists from the past. They should be able to talk with confidence about famous artists and be able to use their knowledge to influence their own pieces of art work. Children should be able to form their own artistic preferences and be able to talk about these with confidence.
Most importantly we aim to give all learners an appreciation of art. We hope that children at Blakehill are proud of their art work and enjoy working creatively.
Arts Council: Pupil Voice
Children are listened to at Blakehill and their thoughts and opinions are valued. We ensure that children support our planning and are able to contribute to the development of the arts in school. At Blakehill we have an arts council. Our arts council support arts leaders in improving and developing opportunities within the arts. There is an arts council representative in every class.
Additionally, pupil surveys help to inform leaders of any areas where children may need further support or teaching opportunities. Leaders use the information gathered in surveys to improve the teaching of the arts at Blakehill.
The Kapow Art revised scheme of work is designed with five strands that run throughout.
These are:
● Generating ideas
● Using sketchbooks
● Making skills, including formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)
● Knowledge of artists
● 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
● 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 pupils using sketchbooks to document their ideas. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key knowledge and techniques learned, encouraging recall of skills processes, key facts and vocabulary. Kapow Primary supports teachers who may lack confidence in their own artistic abilities. Pupil videos created by subject specialists help pupils to see art techniques modelled by experts, to ensure the delivery of Art in your school is of the highest quality. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Kapow has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full Art and design curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.
We hold an exhibition of art yearly to showcase the work of each class in art and design.
Children will have other opportunities to develop their artistic skills through visiting artists and whole school art challenges such as the mini canvas project and Christmas card design project.
Kapow Primary’s curriculum is designed in such a way that children are involved in evaluation, dialogue and decision making about the quality of their outcomes and the improvements they need to make. By taking part in our 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. The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. An assessment spreadsheet including the learning outcomes for children with secure understanding and those working at greater depth enables teachers to keep records of summative assessments for each child. After the implementation of Kapow Primary’s Art and design scheme, pupils should leave primary school equipped with a range of techniques and the confidence and creativity to form a strong foundation for their Art and design learning at Key Stage 3 and beyond. The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Art and design scheme of work is that children will:
★ Be proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.
★Produce creative work, exploring and recording their ideas and experiences.
★ 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.
Children at Blakehill speak about art with passion and enthusiasm. They are able to make links in their learning to famous artists and are interested to find out about new materials and techniques. The children's sketch books tell a story about each child's journey of art throughout their time at Blakehill and are a pleasure to look at and see how each child has grown artistically. Children at Blakehill are bold, creative and excited to 'have a go' at any artistic challenge given to them.
- Children enjoy art and design and show pride in their work.
- All children have the opportunity to work with a range of different artistic media and materials within painting, drawing and sculpture.
- Children show a clear progression in their artistic skills each year.
- Artistic terms and vocabulary are confidently used by children when talking about pieces of art work.
- Children are be able to talk confidently about a range of famous artists and begin to form their own artistic preferences.