Art and Design

At Rainford Church of England Primary School we pride ourselves as being a school that engages, inspires and challenges pupils to become creative and cultured individuals, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment and create their own works of art, craft and design.  We intend for the children in our school to see the arts as part of their journey to self-discover into adulthood.

A child in Rainford C of E Primary School will be able to:

• Create a range of 2D and 3D art work,
• Use a sketch book to develop their ideas over time,
• Evaluate the works of famous artists/architects,
• Use others art work to influence their own,
• Experiment with a wide range of media and make suitable choices,
• Appreciate the importance of art and how it changes through history

We follow the aims of the 2014 National Curriculum for art, which state that children should:

• 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

The curriculum content is sequenced to build learning over time. We have consulted with a specialist in the arts to ensure that the content is planned and sequenced so that knowledge and skills build on prior learning and towards clearly defined end points; curriculum content supports subsequent learning: within lessons, lesson sequences, topics, years and phases curriculum; planning identifies small enough component steps; and known gaps in knowledge and skills are addressed in the sequencing of lesson content. Cognitive Load Theory is at the heart of all of our curriculum design and pedagogy at Rainford CE and our art and design curriculum is no exception.

Within the curriculum, lessons are planned with cross-curricular links with RE, history and geography. These links are clearly highlighted on the art and design curriculum mapping to ensure that children use all opportunities to deepen learning by making those explicit links across subjects. Our art and design curriculum ensures that art and design concepts are taught in blocks to ensure clear progression and deeper understanding. These blocks or modules include colour (painting and/or collage), sculpture, drawing and printing. Each year, three of the four modules are taught of which two will be a colour unit and a drawing unit.  Printing and sculpture are taught every other year.

The children will recap key skills, knowledge and vocabulary for each concept from the previous key stage which ensures that the modules are progressive throughout the key stages. All Rainford CE pupils will be confident in using artistic vocabulary to effectively communicate their ideas and they will select and apply their knowledge and skills from other subjects to further support in drawing their own ideas. Each module has been planned to ensure key art and design skills are built upon in each year and tasks show clear progression between key stages. Each module has 3 or 4 clearly identified endpoints which are made aware to the children at the beginning of each sequence of lessons.

Drawing will be embedded in the design process across all topics (children will be encouraged to express themselves and explore their drawing using different media, both wet and dry, where appropriate). The first lesson in each topic, allows children to explore a range of concepts and allows time for children to experiment and practise/embed pre- taught skills, knowledge and vocabulary.

Long term planning

Art long term plan

Key Figures

Our local context of a predominantly white British community leads to a need to celebrate the work of culturally-diverse notable people. Children, therefore, study a range of male and female artists of different ages and from different cultures.