Our Art and Design Coordinators are Miss E. Galloway and Ms R. Sarkar

Why do we teach what we teach? (Our intent)

At St. Mary’s, we pride ourselves on creativity and questioning. Art is a perfect way to achieve this! When embarking on an artistic journey in our school, children are highly encouraged to form opinions, question, and debate about a piece of art that they are examining in class. Art provides a space for children to express themselves visually, physically and verbally which gives children the confidence to speak up, share their ideas and opinion and learn to take on constructive criticism.  We aim for all children to leave St Mary’s with the core foundation skills, techniques and experiences of media that are needed to appreciate how art contributes to our culture and history.

How do we teach it? (Our implementation)

At St Mary’s we use the Access Art scheme of work to teach art. We focus on the following strands:

• Drawing
• Printmaking
• Painting

Children are taught the skill to achieve their own artistic ability. It is recognized that art is subjective, and therefore cannot be judged as right or wrong- therefore, once the children have learnt a skill, they have the freedom to interpret the skill as they wish.

The curriculum is planned to allow coverage of art to be broad and develop skills and knowledge year-on-year. Strands are revisited in every unit so children can learn and practise skills discretely. The knowledge and skills from these units are then applied throughout the other units in the scheme. Key skills are revisited again and again with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model. This allows children to retrieve and build on their previous learning.

In KS1, the basics of drawing, printmaking and painting is introduced and beginning to be secured. By early KS2, children are solidifying their skills and applying them to projects using their own interpretation. By the end of KS2, children have the freedom to employ any art skills that they have acquired to any projects assigned - not only in art but also across the curriculum. Art forces children to push their limits and feeds their curiosity about the world around them.

Art runs in rotation with DT and is taught half termly.

What is the difference that this makes? (Our impact)

Children develop a skills that they can improve and build on each year. They experience the work of a wide range of artists and art movements (e.g. Surrealism, Impressionism and Pointillism) and use these to recognise imagery and visual ideas in the world around them. This is the starting point for their essential understanding and enjoyment of visual language and enjoyment into later life.

Children at St Mary’s learn from mistakes and see the process of failure, accidents and imperfections as a necessary journey towards competency and creativity.

Children at St Mary’s are open to new ideas and concepts and are flexible enough to view the world through other people's eyes.

Links to websites that will support and deepen children's learning of Art: