Inspire Art & Design

Intent

At Larkrise, we inspire our children through the art curriculum which we have developed based on the Art & Design National Curriculum and the Early Learning Goal ‘Creating with Materials’ from within the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Our Art curriculum values skills, creativity and studying designers and artists through history. We want our children to become skilful artists who can independently apply their knowledge in new ways and make their own creative decisions.

The Art curriculum aims to develop a range of progressive skills involving a range of mediums and inspired by various artists, designers and architects, both modern and historical, from around the world. However, whilst we value this skill, it is equally important that children at Larkrise are encouraged to independently make and justify their own independent choices around colour, technique and design.

We focus on supporting the creative expression of our pupils through our Creative Arts change team, which includes music and drama. Our aim for our children is to be inspired by the world around them and to be able to express themselves creatively without limitations, looking into expressions of belief and feelings through their artwork. With this in mind, we draw parallels between renowned artists and their work and the big questions that guide our wider curriculum. 

Inspire Knowledge and Skills: Our art curriculum is designed to build on skills in three main artistic areas: sculpture, textiles and ‘wet and dry materials’ (this includes painting and drawing). Alongside this, children learn about inspirational artists, architects and designers from across the world and from different backgrounds and cultures. This allows them to explore skills in context and develop the ability to analyse existing artwork critically. 

Inspire Creativity & Adventure: At Larkrise, we value individual creativity and allow children to explore new avenues through adventure confidently. With this in mind, a key aim of our art curriculum is to encourage children to make their own creative decisions about the artwork they produce. No limit is set on the children for their final piece for each topic. They can choose colours, patterns, and sizes of pieces and make other decisions about their production. They are only guided through displaying the skills they have practised and shown that their piece should be inspired by an artist or topic given to them; often, their final piece is a response to their big question. This freedom allows children to develop and hone their creativity and think carefully about the impact of their decisions on their artwork. Children are encouraged to justify and explain their choices.

Inspire Kindness: While learning about various artists, designers and cultures, our children learn how art can inspire change. We support children to understand how art can be impactful in this way and how they can utilise this to promote issues important to them. Children at Larkrise also learn about the hardships various artists have faced - such as Branwyn Owens and Alonzo Clemons- and how art can help others find their place. 

Our Schemes of Work for Art & design are structured across the following areas of learning, which can be found in our Art & Design Progression Grids. 

Implementation

We implement our Art and Design curriculum through our enquiry-themed curriculum. This is a ‘golden thread’ through all our teaching and learning.

For example, in year 4, the children focus on the question, ‘is anything more precious than water?’ before exploring the work of Hokusai and  J.M.W Turner, comparing and analysing how the artists portray waves. They'll then learn skills around proportion and creating effects using a range of skills such as bleeds, washes, scratches and splashes to create their own piece inspired by the big question and core text of Lila and the Secret of Rain.

We cover key skills each year under the following topics: 

• Sculpture (this includes a range of mediums such as clay, 3D modelling, wire modelling and plaster).
• Textiles (this includes sewing, which is introduced after year 2, cross stitching and collage).
• Wet/Dry Materials (this includes different kinds of paint, chalk, charcoal, pencil and pen). Watercolour in particular, is introduced after year 2.  
• General skills (this includes artist studies, observational skills, feedback and discussion, the design progress and how to use sketchbooks effectively). 

Final pieces do not need to be done in a prescriptive fashion: you have spent the term teaching each child to use skills and this is their opportunity to apply them as broadly as they wish with guidance from the teacher. Any decisions children make should be justified. With this in mind, particularly in the wet/dry term, judge how many mediums to introduce based on your class- you may just stick to paint, pencil and chalk, or you may choose to give them much larger access. 

Like all areas of our Inspire Curriculum, we have used research evidence to develop our teaching and learning pedagogy. For more information, please see our Inclusive Quality First Teaching Key Principles.