Intent
At Beechwood, we want our pupils to think for themselves and care for others. We view creativity as an important part of the National Curriculum, our aim is to provide a positive and nurturing environment that promotes creativity and the freedom to explore and learn through art.
We are passionate that all our students are given opportunities to explore their ideas: learning how to design, make and evaluate art using a range of mediums and materials. Whilst we follow a carefully designed scheme for our lessons, we are also proactive in providing additional art oppurtunities throughout the year such as exhibiting their artwork as part of our HPAN project and creating artwork linked to special events and other areas of the curriculum.
Implementation
From EYFS, up to Year 6, our children are taught the essential knowledge and skills taken from the Early Years Framework 2021 and the National Curriculum 2014. Our well-planned journey through the art curriculum helps our pupils to build upon their prior learning and apply past knowledge to new situations; we are passionate about ensuring that our children’s learning transfers to their longterm memory. To ensure that this happens we constantly revisit concepts and themes both within year groups and subjects and across year groups and different subjects where applicable.
As a school we use Kapow as our carefully selected scheme of work for art however, we further enhance this where possible with additional opportunities for children to further develop their artistic abilities including our HPAN exhibition and whole school theme weeks. As soon as children come to our school, they are encouraged to be creative. Lessons are taught to encourage the children to think like an artist, to develop curiosity about pictures and paintings,
whilst also inspiring our children to present what they have learnt in a range of different styles.
Each art lesson starts with a retrieval task where they are encouraged to draw upon their prior learning. This supports children in applying knwoeldge to their long-term memory and allowing them to make connections in their learning and think independnetly.
Throughout our carefully selected art units, pupils also learn about focus artists. By focusing on a few artists across the year, children are able to learn about them in more depth.
Impact
Art is enjoyed and valued by everyone throughout the school community. Pupils are always keen to learn new skills and work hard to develop those shown to them. Teachers have high expectations and quality evidence can be presented in a variety of ways. All children use technical vocabulary accurately and pupils are expected to know, apply and understand a range of skills and processes. Children will become more confident in analysing work and giving their opinion on their own and other works of art. Children show their resilience and perseverance by continually evaluating and improving their work. Displays around the school reflect the children’s sense of pride in their artwork and pupils use sketchbooks to show their progression of skills, individual inspiration and personal reflection.
