Art

Miss Van Waarde

Art Lead

By the time our children leave Gillshill Primary School, we will have equipped them with a breadth of knowledge, skills and artistic experiences to give them a secure foundation for their secondary school learning. Our Art curriculum will have instilled in them a love and enjoyment of learning about how to express themselves creatively using a wide range of media and situations, as well as contributed to the children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection.

The art curriculum is sequenced so that children develop skills across three main strands: Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. Within each of these three strands knowledge and skills are developed in three key areas: printing and pattern, collage and texture, and digital media. The curriculum from Year 1 to Year 6 is designed to build on the starting points within Expressive Arts and Design in the EYFS. This begins in KS1 with a drawing unit on portraits to ensure all pupils recognise the importance of observation within Art to draw more lifelike and realistic objects. As the children move further into school units on observational drawing, landscapes and still life build knowledge of techniques and application of skills so that all children progress within this strand as they move through the school. The sequencing of painting through the trust is based on developing children’s knowledge of colour theory and applying this in increasingly complex ways. For example, building on the EYFS in Year 1 will mix primary colours to make secondary colours, before exploring tints and shades and tertiary colours in Year2. Through KS2 children will explore the effect of colours and mood and use them to express feelings in their work. Building on the children’s learning in the EYFS sculpture is developed through the art curriculum beginning with exploring malleable materials adding texture and pattern with tools. This progresses through the medium of natural sculptures, such as leaves and stones. In KS2 development continues through investigating paper sculptures, through the study of origami. Progress continues through the application of learnt skills through the medium of clay, and this concludes with the study of Giacometti sculptures of the human form. The stimulus for all units of work within Art are based on famous artists and designers, many of these have links to our local area. This supports the: Imitate, Innovate and Invent sequence to teaching that we have developed to enable children to apply their knowledge in their own creative ways.