Art

At Woodthorpe, we value the importance of our children receiving a well-balanced and engaging curriculum. Art plays a huge part in this due to its hands-on nature and provides children with the opportunity to develop key skills for life as well as promoting enjoyment, a form of self-expression and an avenue for the development of talents. Within Art, we teach our children to respect others through collaborative group work in addition to exploring famous artists’, craft makers’ and designers’ work. Our Art approach promotes self esteem by developing creative pride and a sense of achievement. Art plays an important part in children’s mental well-being by providing them with a chance to connect with their thoughts, emotions and experiences. Children have the opportunity to experiment, invent and create in a range of art forms to express their imagination and inspire creativity.

We aim to foster an appreciation of the arts that will last a lifetime. Naturally, Art challenges our children, through its progression of skills and techniques throughout their primary journey. Within Art, children study and reflect on a wide range of diverse, cultural and historical artists to develop their understanding of the world around them and know how art and design has shaped history.

Our Art and Design curriculum is taught through the published scheme, KAPOW, and builds upon the National Curriculum and is implemented using four discrete stands:

1. Drawing
2. Painting and mixed media
3. Sculpture and 3D
4. Craft and Design 

Children become proficient in art techniques by building on prior knowledge and skills, including their control and their use of materials. Children record their work and ideas in sketch books and these demonstrate progression in skills and techniques. Through Art, children will develop skills such as: creative thinking, critical thinking by evaluating and giving constructive feedback, fine and gross motor skills, perseverance and experimental skill.

Many celebrations, memorable moments and events throughout the school year involve Art, enabling children to explore the subject alongside other areas of the curriculum through cross-curricular lessons. We achieve this in a number of ways such as children having the opportunity to attend a range of different art and craft clubs throughout the school year. In these clubs, children develop their crafting, painting, sculpting and drawing skills by creating weekly art projects. We are also lucky enough to have organised a public exhibition at the York Barbican Theatre, where children created  stunning mixed-media pieces of art and design work based around our local environment.

Key knowledge & skills progression

Sample Knowledge Mat