Art & Design

Intent

At Bishop Wilson we have adopted the Art & Design scheme of work from Kapow.

We teach our children to master Art & Design to such an extent that they can go on to have careers within Art and Design and make use of art effectively in their everyday lives. Art & Design at Bishop Wilson stimulates imagination and creativity; involving children in a range of visual, tactile and sensory experiences, which enable them to communicate what they see, think and feel in a range of ways, regardless of their ability. Art & Design, at Bishop Wilson School, promotes careful observation and an appreciation of the world around us. Through learning about the roles and functions of art, children can explore the impact it has had on contemporary life and on different periods and cultures.

Implementation

Our Art & Design curriculum ensures that our children follow a sequence to build on previous learning. Our children will gain experience and skills of a wide range of formal elements of art in a way that will enhance their learning opportunities, enabling them to use Art & Design across a range of subjects to be creative and solve problems, ensuring they make progress.

Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. Our high-quality Art & Design curriculum engages, inspire and challenges our pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. At Bishop Wilson, our pupils are encouraged to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of Art and Design. They are taught how Art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. At Bishop Wilson, our children learn that Art can tell a story and spread an important message. By becoming Art critics themselves, they are able to explore the meaning behind art work and learn how we can all interpret a piece of art work in their own unique way. Through exploring the work of artists, such as Banksy, Cezanne and Beatriz Milhazes. Children further build on our core values of respect and empathy. At Bishop Wilson, Art & Design is not restricted to the Art lesson. Our children often have the opportunity to apply their art skills and support their learning in other areas, linked to poetry writing in English or developing on drama used to explore life in a different period in history.

We follow a broad and balanced Art and Design curriculum that builds on previous learning and provides both support and challenge for learners. We follow Kapow Art and Design scheme which is designed with four strands that run throughout. These are:

Making skills
Formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)
Knowledge of artists
Evaluating

Through Kapow Primary’s Art and design scheme, these strands are revisited in every unit. In our Art and design skills and our Formal elements of art units, children have the opportunity to 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. This allows pupils to revise and build on their previous learning.

Our children enjoy and value Art and Design and know why they are doing things, not just how. Children will understand and appreciate the value of Art and Design in the context of their personal wellbeing and the creative and cultural industries and their many career opportunities.

EYFS

Beginning their Art and design journey in a fun, hands-on and developmentally appropriate way, our Kapow’s EYFS scheme is designed to enable children to strengthen key skills and explore new techniques and ideas. Kapow links to relevant outcomes and the Early Learning Goals taken from Development Matters the EYFS Statutory Framework, making it easy to ensure coverage and provide evidence.

Our Early Years practitioners support children in their chosen area of exploration by providing additional resources. This could mean:

Providing encouragement and support.
Introducing new vocabulary through informal conversation.
Encouraging children to create together as a group.
Starting to create on your own, encouraging others (pupils) to join in.
Scaffolding the planning, designing and creating process.
Using familiar, everyday objects to create art. Learning about different artistic techniques from around the world.
Looking at books that showcase different types of art.
Learning and practising new techniques together.
Using a safe search engine to find out more information or facts about particular artists or techniques.
Finding out about different art relating to customs and festivals that are important to the children.

The play-based scheme ensures a child-led approach to Art and design, with every lesson reflecting the ethos of ‘process over outcome’. Lessons have flexible objectives, making them easily adaptable to any topic, and contain teacher prompts, guidance on assessment and key vocabulary. The units mirror the four key areas identified in our KS1 and KS2 scheme: Drawing, Painting and mixed media, Sculpture and 3D and Craft and design. Each unit provides opportunities for pupils to learn new skills, practise their fine motor skills and develop their vocabulary with subject-specific language.

KS1 and KS2

For each year group, the curriculum is broken down into concepts and it is taught in units. Each unit is divided into steps, lessons. Step by step, strong foundations of knowledge and understanding. A typical lesson using Art and Design is an hour and is taught weekly in Key Stages 1 and 2 and is alternated each half term with Design and Technology. Children are taught in mixed ability classes throughout the school. The learning in each lesson will focus on objectives and connections are made cross-curricular where possible. Lessons incorporate a range of strategies from independent tasks, pairs work and group work.

Assessment

Progress in Art and Design is demonstrated through regularly reviewing and scrutinising children’s work, in accordance with our Art and Design assessment policy to ensure that progression of skills is taking place.

Looking at pupils’ work, especially over time as they gain skills and knowledge
Observing how they perform in lessons
Talking to them about what they know
Sharing their work with others

Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded in the units, supporting our children in learning how to make their own creative choices and decisions. Progress in Art and Design is demonstrated through regularly reviewing and scrutinising children’s work, in accordance with our Art and Design assessment policy to ensure that progression of skills is taking place. The Art and Design curriculum will contribute to children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection. This would be seen in them being able to talk confidently about their work, and lessons are engaging and appeal to all learning styles. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to stretch pupils exceeding and those needing more support.

For the school’s approach to the assessment of Art & Design, please see the school’s Marking, Feedback & Assessment Policy (2023).