Art and Design at Foxhill
Mrs Thomason - Art Leader
'Being the art lead in a primary school is incredibly rewarding because it allows me to combine my passion for art with a love for teaching. While I originally dreamed of becoming an artist, I now get to experience the next best thing: helping children discover their own creative potential - watching them thrive and grow through their creativity is a privilege.'
Art and Design in Action
Intent
​
Our Art curriculum is designed to engage, inspire and challenge pupils, whilst equipping them with the knowledge and skills to be able to experiment, invent and create their own works of art. As pupils progress, they should gain a deeper understanding of how art and design reflects and shapes our history, and how it contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our world.
We want our children to love art and design! We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and to grow up wanting to be ilustrators, graphic designers, fashion designers, curators, architects or printmakers.
We want to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. We have carefully selected a wide range of unique and diverse artists, craft makers and designers for children to study and have planned opportunities for children to visit the Art galleries and museums of Bradford and surrounding areas.
​
'The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something,
you can do it, as long as you really believe...100 percent.'
David Hockney
​
​​​
Implementation
​​
This is organised into blocks with each block covering a particular set of artistic disciplines, including drawing, painting, printmaking, textiles, 3D and collage. Vertical progression in each discipline has been deliberately woven into the fabric of the curriculum so that pupils can revisit key disciplines throughout their Primary journey at increasing degrees of challenge and complexity.
In addition to the core knowledge required to be successful within each discipline, the curriculum outlines key aspects of artistic development in the Working Artistically section. Each module will focus on developing different aspects of these competencies. This will support teachers in understanding pupils’ development as artists more broadly, as well as how successfully they are acquiring the taught knowledge and skills
Art and Design Progression/Skills at Foxhill
Early Years
School Overview
OVERVIEW OF KNOWLEDGE
​
The overview provides a list of the expected outcomes. Each block provides details of the artistic knowledge and skills pupils will be expected to have acquired. It includes detailed explanations of the core knowledge covered in each block.
KNOWLEDGE NOTES
Knowledge notes focus pupils’ working memory to the key questions that may be asked at the end of the lesson. This helps to reduce cognitive load.
RETRIEVAL PRACTISE
​
Retrieval practise is planned into the curriculum through spaced learning and as part of considered task design by the class teacher.
INCLUSION
​
Within Art and Design ALL pupils will take part in all the lesson sequences, but we need to be clear about the critical core content for pupils with SEND.
As part of the planning and preparation for the delivery of each block, teachers will need to consider how specific activities or the delivery may need to be adjusted to ensure that pupils with SEND are able to access the materials and participate fully in the lesson.
Pupils with language and communication difficulties (including those with ASD) may need additional visual prompts to help them understand what is expected of them. Some pupils may require individual task boards to enable them to follow a series of steps where a task has been broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Some pupils may have sensory sensitivities. For those pupils, adjustments may need to be made in order for them to access materials. For example, pupils can be provided with crayons or pastels in paper sleeves. Pupils who have significant motor skill difficulties may require pencil grips or sloped surfaces to work on.
​
VOCABULARY
​
The units are supported by vocabulary modules which provide both resources for teaching and learning vital vocabulary and provide teachers with Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary.
We aim to provide a high challenge with low threat culture and put no ceiling on any child’s learning, instead providing the right scaffolding for each child for them to achieve.
IMPACT
​
The impact of this curriculum design will lead to outstanding progress over time across key stages relative to a child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills.
Children will therefore be expected to leave Foxhill reaching at least age related expectations for Art and Desgn. Our Art and Desgn curriculum will also lead pupils to be enthusiastic learners, evidenced in a range of ways, including pupil voice and their work.
HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT THE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED?
Exemplification is available and can be used to inform assessment of pupil outcomes and to support teachers in developing their own subject knowledge. They demonstrate the expected standard against which teachers can assess pupils’ work.
The assessment of pupils is formative based on pupil outcomes and questioning from each lesson. The following can be used to assess pupils’ knowledge and application of artistic techniques and their understanding and use of artistic vocabulary.
-
Expectations for each block are made explicit in plans, e.g. At the end of this block pupils will know marks can be made using a variety of drawing tools and will be able to select appropriate tools and make a range of marks.
-
The Point of Reflection section specifies the expected outcome for each lesson.
-
The Questions for Assessment section in each block provide specific questions to be used with pupils to elicit their level of understanding of tools, techniques and effects, e.g. What happens if you change the size of the mark?
-
The Oracy and Vocabulary tasks enable teachers to evaluate pupils’ ability to:
- use artistic language effectively;
- explain artistic techniques and processes; - evaluate their own and others’ work.
-
The vocabulary quiz provides an opportunity for teachers to assess pupils’ deeper understanding and application of artistic and technical vocabulary covered in the block.
The best form of assessment in art is in-action, while pupils are working. This helps us to understand pupils’ development as artists, rather than their ability to produce a prescribed end outcome. By encouraging pupils to articulate their thinking and reflections, we can understand which aspects of artistic development they may require additional teaching in and reshape teaching to support this.
Questions for Assessment
​​
A series of self evaluation questions are provided for each unit, for example:
PUPIL BOOK STUDY TELLS US:
1. What impact is our CURRICULUM having?
What effect is the curriculum architecture having?
2. Does teaching support LONG-TERM LEARNING?
Is the evidence-led practice really being deployed at a classroom level, or is it superficial?
3. Do tasks enable pupils to THINK HARD and CREATE LONG-TERM MEMORY?How impactful are tasks, and do they help pupils to think hard and generate learning?