Rationale

Art and Design curriculum at Holy Trinity Primary School aims to give the children the opportunity to learn how to handle and use a wide range of tools and materials skilfully and provide quality experience of the work of artists, craft workers and designers in order to enable them to make judgements about the nature of expression and quality.  An appreciation of the children’s own perceptions and expression through their learning is always valued and promoted.  For this purpose, art and design is taught though the creative and thematic approach of the Cornerstones Curriculum. During their time at Holy Trinity, the following ‘Areas of Study’ outline the basis for balanced programmes of art activities: drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, textiles, 2D and 3D work.

Intent

The National Curriculum provides a learning framework for schools but there is not enough structure to provide schools with the necessary detail. Through the Cornerstones Curriculum, Holy Trinity has broken down the programmes of study into a series of skills and knowledge that shows how we intend to cover the fundamental concepts of each national curriculum subject.

We believe that all children are creative and we aim to develop their imaginative and practical skills so that they can express their ideas and feeling through a variety of media. The school is very well equipped with resources and expertise and space. We make the most of our beautiful grounds using them to create large, natural pieces of artwork. There are many opportunities to explore ceramics and different glaze effects making good use of our kiln. We believe that the children’s sketchbooks are very important as a dictionary of the skills they are building up and how they are progressing and improving these skills each time they revisit them.  We encourage the children to think about art and design’s place in society and the fact that there is evidence of creativity all around us which affects and changes the way we live our lives.

Implementation

Through our art lessons we cover the four art and design strands: creativity, competence, cultural understanding and critical understanding. We aim that they experiment with a range of media each year such as pencil, graphite, charcoal, ink, pastels (chalk and oil), paint, printing, collage and clay, building skills each year. We also look at a number of artists/crafts persons or designers who use the different media and styles that the children are learning about.

Creativity

While at Holy Trinity C of E Primary School, the children will try new ideas and ways of working, taking creative risks when exploring, experimenting and responding to ideas. They will also take creative risks with the information that they select and the resources they use to help them develop their work.

Competence

They will learn to use their technical knowledge and skills to control the appearance and feel of different media when designing and making and, when learning new processes, they will apply their technical knowledge and skills to control the way they use line, shape, tone, colour, texture and form.

Cultural Understanding

When looking at work from different cultures, they will think about and share their ideas about the techniques and approaches that are used by the artists, crafts persons and designers. They will think about and discuss these, considering both the context in which the work was made and why they think it was made.

Critical Understanding

They will evaluate their own work and that of others, reflecting on their own view of its meaning and purpose (why they made it and what it means). They will then use these evaluations to adapt and refine their ideas, the processes they use and their intentions.