Intent
At Crosby Ravensworth we aim to develop a passion for and appreciation of art among our pupils. Learners are provided with meaningful opportunities to express their creativity, acquire new skills as well as fine-tuning existing skills. Pupils learn to be reflective of their work and the work of other artists, expressing thoughts and asking questions. They develop an understanding of how art and design has influenced history and culture in our nation and in others around the world.
Through the use of the Kapow Art and Design scheme and The Primary Art Skills scheme, our bespoke curriculum supports pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets.
In summer 2023, the school attained a silver Artsmark Award, which recognised how we increase opportunities to be creative, to visit museums, galleries and theatre, to celebrate pupil achievement and to raise awareness and aspirations of pupils regarding future careers working in the arts.
Implementation
The children are taught Art as a discrete subject, alternating half-termly with Design and Technology. The skills and techniques they learn are used to enhance and develop creativity in all other areas of the curriculum including RE, PSHE and other topic areas.
Our new and improved art curriculum has been developed as a result of recent CPD with Primary Art Skills and incorporates both the knowledge and skills obtained from this training with the Kapow Primary Arts Scheme. Children are taught the 6 visual elements of line, colour, texture, shape, pattern and tone through the following mediums:
Throughout all themes, children develop a knowledge of other artists (local, national and international) and are encouraged to respond to what they see and ask questions. Children are encouraged to make their own creative choices and evaluate their work. Our curriculum is progressive, ensuring that previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon throughout our four year (mixed age KS2) and two year (mixed age KS1) cycles.
We are fortunate to have a range of artists working in the local area and the children's learning is further enhanced through our connections with them. We host a range of workshops with Eden arts, The RagTag Scrapstore and Rheged gallery. We place great importance on celebrating our pupils' artistic achievements; at the very least their work will be displayed in communal areas of the school but we also showcase it regularly in the local church. Biannually we host an ‘arts’ evening in the village hall where parents are invited to browse their children’s work in a ‘gallery’ style. Our ‘art area’ is very well resourced, allowing children to become artists who are exposed to working with a wide variety of materials.
Impact
Impact can be continuously monitored through both formative and summative assessment. Kapow supports teachers in assessing against the learning objectives and each unit has a quiz and knowledge catcher. Our bespoke art assessment Grid enables us to assess children against the learning objectives for each year group.
The impact of our art curriculum can be seen in pupil’s high-quality pieces of art that meet the learning objectives. Our children's application of skills in other areas of the curriculum, shows that the knowledge and understanding of these skills is embedded.
Our children can evaluate, self-reflect and assess their own work. A progression of skills is evident within the children's sketchbooks.