Intent

Helmdon Primary School aims to inspire and develop children’s confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art.  Learning within art, craft and design stimulates creativity and imagination, providing visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a special way of understanding and responding to the world. A high-quality art and design education should inspire, engage and challenge children - enabling pupils to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form and pattern, making a creative response to a variety of stimulus. Our art and design curriculum is 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. We place an emphasis on encouraging exploratory journeys, working towards varied and individual outcomes.

Implementation

Helmdon Primary School follows the Kapow  Art scheme of work which has been developed by experts in the field. The scheme 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

The Kapow units fully scaffold and support essential and age appropriate, sequenced learning. Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into the 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. Lessons are adapted where necessary to ensure that all lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. 

Art lessons are delivered every other half term, alternating with Design and Technology. Drawing opportunities are however provided throughout the year to ensure skills are maintained.  Regular extra curricular and enrichment events are also timetabled throughout the year, including International Artist Day, World Art Week and initiatives such as Take One Picture.  

Impact

By the end of their time with us, children will have learned, improved and embedded a range of artistic skills. Through enabling pupils to think about the purpose of art and artists to all our lives, we will ensure that as children grow they are able to express and better understand themselves and the world in which they live. Pupils will be confident to explore, experiment and take risks, placing value on the process and journey that they take, not just on the finished product. Utilising a sketchbook approach, children will feel safe to experiment and take risks, without the fear of doing something "wrong".  Most importantly, we want children to have found and enjoyed a creative outlet – a means of self-expression and enjoyment.

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.  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.

Children will:

★ Produce creative work, exploring and recording their ideas and experiences.

★ Be proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques. 

★ 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.

Assessment

There are no national standards set in art for primary-aged children. Conversation-based assessment in art takes place on an ongoing basis.  The conversations might take place as a class, as a group, or one to one and will feed into processes of reflection and evaluation. These conversations and opportunities for reflection take place throughout the creative process, making assessment meaningful and relevant.