Intent

At Crampton Primary school, we believe creativity is a unique trait to which we are all entitled.

We aim to provide our children with an experience that is exciting and to ensure that they combine practical skills learnt throughout their time at Crampton with the ability to think creatively and develop valuable and transferable skills ready for their secondary experience and future careers.

Through our Art curriculum we aim to enable individual children to make choices regarding materials and processes and to be empowered towards making personal, creative responses. We provide children with opportunities for new experiences and personal exploration balanced with time for repeated practice of the technical skills and contextual knowledge acquired.

At Crampton Primary school, we aim to provide an Art and Design Curriculum which develops learning and results in children knowing more, remembering more and understanding how the knowledge and skills can be applied in their own art work.

Creativity across all the curriculum allows all children, regardless of ability, to apply what they have learnt and solidify key ideas. It can bring key concepts to life and provide valuable, alternative ways for children to record and demonstrate their understanding.

Implementation

When delivering the Art and Design curriculum at Crampton, there is a real focus on teaching the children new skills and techniques. To ensure art lessons provide the children with a real sense of purpose, some of the pathways are adapted to make cross curricular links with our other subjects. These cross curricular links help immerse the children in their art sessions and ensure they are memorable. An example of this is Year 1 sketching and printing flowers which links to their science ‘plants topic’ and year 6 drawing 2d to 3d topic is linked with their World War Learning Journey topic.

Throughout their time at Cramton Primary School, the children are given a range of opportunities to explore a wide variety of materials and techniques, developing their skills and thinking as young artists, using the ‘Access Art’ Pathways to form the basis of our Art curriculum. The curriculum pathways are progressive and so allows the children to build on skills, knowledge and techniques year on year. Throughout each pathway, the children build on previous understanding through five areas of content: making skills, generating ideas, formal elements, knowledge of artists and evaluating their work. Various media types are explored within each unit to give the widest possible range of experiences for all children. The materials and media used are revisited throughout units and year groups to ensure progression of skills previously developed. Children have access to key knowledge, language and meanings, through displays, in order to understand and readily apply new terminology to their work in Art and across the wider curriculum.

Impact

Through our commitment to the art curriculum, we aim to see a tangible impact on our children, we anticipate a noticeable impact in their knowledge, confidence and enthusiasm for art. The time dedicated to art will translate into a heightened enjoyment on the subject, fostering a sense of pleasure in creative exploration. Our goal is to witness a willingness among Crampton children to take creative risks, leading to a deeper understanding and appreciation for arts. Ultimately, we expect this curriculum to contribute significantly to the development of each student’s sense of identity.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) - Art Overview

Our EYFS curriculum is taken from the Access Art Curriculum. It promotes open-ended creative learning, placing emphasis on the creative journey and nurturing children to become confident independent creators. In order to prepare the children for the areas of art within the primary curriculum we give the children opportunities and experiences which enable them to:

• Build dexterity skills
• Explore materials and mark making in a playful way
• Use bodies and imaginations to inspire making
• Explore how they can reflect and share their views about what they have seen or made
• Explore how art enriches our lives

We assess by asking questions and think in terms of a simple criteria:

• Connection: Is the child able to make a connection between the world, materials and ideas (whatever form that connection takes)?
• Enthusiasm: Has the activity engaged the child? Is it relevant and enabling?
• Dexterity:  Is the child able to practise and progress dexterity skills to help them connect head, heart, hand?
• Materials: Is the child able to explore materials in a playful, explorative way?
• Articulation: Is the child able to articulate, at a level appropriate for that particular child, their likes/dislike/hopes both during and after a session?

The EYFS activities are grouped into 7 areas of exploration;

• What can we see?
• How can we explore colour?
• How can we build worlds?
• How can we explore materials and marks?
• How can we explore 3D materials?
• How can we use our bodies to make art?
• How can we use our imaginations?

Within each area the children complete activities which enable an open-ended, playful exploration of materials, processes and ideas, which in turn nurture dexterity skills, promote an early understanding of visual literacy skills, and begin to build the child’s confidence in their ability to make a personal, creative response to a stimuli. These opportunities provide a foundation for pupils to develop skills further when entering KS1/KS2.

Art Curriculum Pathways