Intent:
At Newlyn School, we believe that art plays a central role to a primary curriculum. It allows children to experiment, test theories and explore creatively, building confidence as everyone can contribute. There are no right or wrong answers. Art is a way for children to express thoughts, feelings and ideas through a range of medium and artistic styles, teaching them life long skills that will support well being and confidence.
A high-quality art education engages, inspires and challenges pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art. As pupils progress, they will develop an appreciation of artists, sculptors and designers and this will have a direct impact on their own work and their oracy skills. Through our links with Newlyn Art Gallery we aim for our children to develop a life-long appreciation of art and the importance art can play in their life.
National Curriculum aims for art and design:
- Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
- Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
- 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 Newlyn School is based on the National Curriculum and linked to topics to ensure a well-structured, high- quality approach to this creative subject.
The children are taught Art as part of their termly topic work three times per year which can be seen in more detail on our long-term plan, as well as other opportunities, when Art is not the focus, to develop and extend skills. Artists studied within our bespoke curriculum include William Morris, Barbara Hepworth, Van Gogh, Monet, Georgia O’Keeffe and Hundertwasser.
Lessons focus on developing key skills using a range of media, ensuring children are confident approaching artwork, feel a strong sense of achievement, reach their full potential and begin to value the impact of art within our own lives. Long term planning ensures a broad and balanced curriculum is being delivered with both depth and progression. Lessons are planned following the progression of knowledge, skills and vocabulary documents. This progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and that skills and knowledge are taught progressively through each year. Throughout the sequence of lessons, all pupils are taught to think critically about their own work and to be reflective and evaluate their work, and the work of their peers, in order to make changes and keep improving as their understanding of media and materials and specific techniques progress.
Educational visits are another opportunity for the teachers to plan for additional art learning outside the classroom. At Newlyn School, children have had opportunities to experience art and design on educational visits exploring local museums and art galleries and have visitors into school to share art and design learning and through hands on experiences.
Early Years Foundation Stage
Expressive arts and design is one of the seven areas of the Early Years Foundation stage and is used to develop a child's imagination, creativity and their ability to use and experience textures, movement, media and materials to create different effects. Through a combination of child initiated and adult directed activities, children at Newlyn school are given a variety of opportunities to develop their artistic skills using simple tools and techniques whilst developing their fine motor skills. Examples include: creating patterns from natural materials, observational drawing, creating collage portraits, playing with colours and shapes.
Key Stage One
In Key Stage One, each child is introduced to a sketchbook that goes through the school with them; clearly illustrating each child’s personal art journey. Pupils at Newlyn School, use sketchbooks to experiment and explore techniques and skills, planning and developing creative ideas as well as responding to artworks of other artists before creating their final pieces. Through our cross curricular topics, the children are given the opportunity to explore different art resources to develop skills in colour mixing, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space.
Key Stage Two
In KS2 pupils are taught to further develop their techniques, including their control and their use of materials, with creativity, experimentation and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design. As in KS1, Cross-curricular links are promoted to allow all children to deepen their understanding across the curriculum, including the use of technology, and artworks from year group specific historical, geographical and scientific contexts.
Ongoing assessment take place throughout the year. teachers use the information to inform future lessons; ensuring children are supported and challenged appropriately.
Throughout the year, we create several different links with the local community which provides us with a fantastic platform to develop lasting relationships with local businesses whilst also promoting our love for art and creativity at Newlyn School. These include: lantern workshops, Penzance Christmas Window competition, internal art competitions, whole school art exhibitions and Golowan festival.
Through Newlyn School’s participation of the ‘Think, Talk, Make Art’ (Paul Hamlyn Trust) children have the unique opportunity to experience a range of artworks in their school environment, further encouraging a culture of love for the arts and raising the aspirations of our children. Our arts and crafts after-school club exposes children to a wider range of artists and artworks and gives our children the opportunity to put into practise the skills and knowledge they have learned in school.
Impact:
Children are aware of the importance of Art and Design in our heritage and the wide variety of cultural diversity that it can represent. Consequently, children will become creative learners, who have a web of knowledge about great artists of the world. The children of Newlyn School will be able to create confidently, and be independent artists who can articulate and value their own creative journeys.
As teachers, there will be an emphasis placed on individuality and children will be given the freedom to explore art using their imaginations. Children will have embedded the key art and design skills needed to allow them to produce inventive pieces of art. Achievements are showcased throughout the year via corridor displays, whole school exhibitions, coffee mornings, parent open sessions and through our close connection with Newlyn Art Gallery. We hope to develop children with aspirations to become future artists, fashion designers, graphic designers, illustrators and curators and show their appreciation of the art around them.
As part of our collaboration with Newlyn Art Gallery, we were asked in the summer 2021 if we would work with artists to programme a month long Palace of Culture. Our Year 5 children were invited to select a number of works from the National Arts Council collection. The works have arrived in school and will remain with us for a year although they will come out of school for the Palace in May.