Art – Wolfson Hillel Primary School

At Wolfson Hillel, we believe children should have access to an engaging and exciting art curriculum where pupils are introduced to the key knowledge, materials and ideas which will enable them to make their own personal choices and creative responses when it comes to their art work.

Intent

The Wolfson Hillel art curriculum ensures that basic skills are introduced and then built upon. Skills are revisited throughout their time with us and the use of ongoing sketchbook work underpins this process.

The curriculum is divided into the four main areas of: generating ideas, making, evaluating and knowledge and understanding. Children will work towards being able to confidently make informed decisions and choices in regards to their own creations and will grow to appreciate and value the importance of art as a highly subjective and individual experience.

Generating ideas

Children are encouraged to take ownership of their sketchbooks and explore art in their own way. They make their own choices and responses which are recorded and each individual sketchbook reflects their personal artistic journey. They explore a range of artists, sources and art forms (e.g. literature, drama, music, film) and use these responses to influence their own art work and thinking. They also use digital media for research and to create records of their artwork.

Making

All children at Wolfson Hillel have opportunities to explore a wide range of materials and processes in order to develop their own artistic styles. Teachers provide children with varied projects of an explorative nature but which also reflect art processes and skills of a high standard.

Throughout the school, projects will involve developing skills in drawing, collage, painting, printmaking, 3D, sculpture, digital media and animation. It is through these projects that children will gain a repertoire of skills and ideas which help to progress their own personal creations.

Evaluating

Children are encouraged to think about their own art work, as well as other artists’ work, and create their own responses. They think about what has worked well, what problems occurred, how they resolved it and what they may want to try next time. They use other artists to inspire their own work and regularly analyse and reflect upon progress. In the process of evaluating, children become more resilient creators.

Knowledge and Understanding

Throughout school, children develop their knowledge and are familiar with the names of various tools, techniques and formal elements. They know and describe the works of many artists, architects and designers of different ethnicities, cultures and times. They use this information to develop ideas, techniques and working practices for different purposes. They know how and when to use tools and techniques confidently.

Our curriculum map can be found here

Implementation

In order to ensure progression, Art has been timetabled in each year group three times a year. This also ensures that pupils are able to build on prior learning and refer back to skills and techniques taught in a previous unit. Both teachers and subject leads are able to effectively monitor progress to ensure that gaps in pupils’ learning are closed. Additionally, subject leads frequently take part in courses and hold training sessions with staff to feedback relevant updates.

To support the delivery of our curriculum, a detailed activity overview has been created for each year group with the intention to provide several topic ideas that encourage children to:

Research and explore artists and their artwork
Take part in practical making and design
Evaluate their progress
Use and understand key art terminology

In addition to this, an extensive range of high-quality resources are provided for each year group to guarantee that every child is able to explore their creativity and develop their artistic skill. In addition to designing and creating quality artwork, an emphasis is made on students using key vocabulary related to Art when speaking about artists or evaluating their own work. Vocabulary lists are therefore attached to the front of each sketchbook, listing the key vocabulary used from year one to year 6, for children to retrieve as and when they need to. Alongside this, Knowledge Organisers have been created for each year group as a summary of key information taught that year.

The intention of these documents is to encourage children to retrieve the information they have learnt from previous years and build on their knowledge to encourage a deeper understanding of Art. This also gives them the necessary tools they need to be able to critically compare and evaluate artwork.

Monitoring and Assessment

Continuous monitoring of our Art curriculum is essential to guarantee that our vision for a creative curriculum is delivered well and accessed by all pupils. Subject leads, therefore, visit each year group on a termly basis to check the progress of children, and the delivery of the art curriculum and will also monitor sketchbooks. Guidance is offered to teachers on a 1:1 basis if needed to support them with planning and technical skills.

Teachers use sketchbooks to assess art but with the understanding that sketchbooks should be owned by the pupils, and should be placed at the centre of pupils’ creativity. Sketchbooks should develop personalities (a class of 30 sketchbooks should not look alike!) Sketchbooks should be used to show a journey and progression of an art unit where it is used as an initial way of recording responses to various stimuli, usually through drawings. There should be a clear development and build-up of skills/techniques. It is a place for the children to practice, develop and refine their work. Teachers will use this, together with their knowledge of the children’s responses in lessons to assess their overall progress based on the Art objectives set out in Hillel’s art curriculum.

Our assessment grid can be found here.

Reading

Key vocabulary is practised and used both in discussions about art and in children’s writing about their art.

Provision for SEND pupils

The Art curriculum at Wolfson Hillel is designed to ensure that all children are able to access the curriculum and explore their creativity. We have a large, fully equipped Art room that is available for whole class sessions or for specific children to use if they need a space to develop their creativity. Our knowledge organisers and vocabulary lists have also been designed with visual aids to support students with SEND to retrieve information.

Subject leads, with support from our school SENCO, provide continuous guidance for teachers to make sure pupils with additional needs are able to access the curriculum and adaptations are made if necessary. For example, some children with sensory needs may need specific resources ordered which will enable them to participate effectively.