St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School

St Thomas of Canterbury
Catholic Primary School "Jesus is at the heart of everything we think, do and say"

Art

Intent

At St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School, we value Art and Design as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Art and Design provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas.

Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. 

Aims 

The national curriculum for art and design aims to ensure that all pupils:

  1.  Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
  2.  Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
  3.  Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
  4.  Know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Implementation

The teaching and implementation of the Art and Design Curriculum at St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School is based on the National Curriculum and linked to topics to ensure a well-structured approach to this creative subject.

The children are taught Art as part of their termly curriculum work.  Areas covered include sculpture mosaics, printing based on topic work, such as the Tudor portraits, nature, Aboriginal art, painting, pointillism, Pop Art and the works of the Impressionist artists.  More detail can be found in our Curriculum Overview.

The work of famous local, national and international artists are explored to enhance the children's learning. 

The children's learning is further enhanced with whole school ‘Black History’ week when the children have the opportunity for collaborative working and exploring the different styles and techniques of a range of artists.

Impact

Through following a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum, it expected that teaching and learning will show progression across all key stages within the strands of Art and Design. Subsequently, more children will achieve age related expectations in Art at the end of their cohort year and Key Stage. It is our aim that children will retain knowledge and skills taught within each unit of work, remember these and understand how to use and apply these in their own art work, whilst beginning to understand what being in ‘artist’ means.

At St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School, we are able to measure the impact that Art and Design has had for all children by:

  • Determining the extent to which objectives are met within each lesson and overall, at the end of each unit.
  • Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
  • Images of the children’s practical learning.
  • Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).

By the time children leave St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School, we want them to have developed a passion for art and creativity, working both independently and collaboratively. They will have grown in confidence when using a range of tools and techniques, becoming artists that can apply the skills and knowledge that they have developed throughout the years and respond critically to their own and other’s work.