Intent

At Newton Primary School we are passionate about ensuring all children can show their creativity, individuality and imagination. Art is a subject that allows all our children to show all these attributes as well as developing skills and knowledge around the subject.

At Newton, we use a scheme of work called ‘Kapow’. Kapow Art and design scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. The scheme is written by experts and designed to give pupils every opportunity to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond.

Kapow supports pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets and has been written to fully cover the National Society for Education in Art and Design’s progression competencies. To extend the children’s own creativity we have added in our own opportunities at the end of each unit for the children to design or invent their own pieces of work that may be inspired by the artists they have learnt about and incorporates the skills they have been developing. Each class are also given the opportunity to share their work with the wider community at least once a year in a big show case event.

As a school we are working towards achieving the Artsmark to which Kapow is a partner. The scheme is therefore able to support schools on their Artsmark journey, inspiring children and young people to create, experience, and participate in great arts and culture.

Implementation

The Kapow Art scheme of work is designed with four strands that run throughout.

These are:

• Making skills

• Formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)

• Knowledge of artists

• Evaluating

To add to this, Newton also celebrates the children’s work and they have lots of opportunities to share work with their peers, other classes, their families and the wider community.

Through Kapow Primary’s Art and design scheme of work, these strands are revisited in every unit. In our Art and design skills and our Formal elements of art units, pupils have the opportunity to learn and practise skills discretely. The knowledge and skills from these units are then applied throughout the other units in the scheme. Key skills are revisited again and again with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model. This allows pupils to revise and build on their previous learning.

Our Curriculum overview (see document below) shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands. Our Progression of skills (see document below) shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

As we have mixed classes at Newton, each lesson has to adapted slightly to ensure every child is practising skills from their year group.

Kapow Primary’s Art and design curriculum develops pupil’s knowledge and understanding of key artists and art movements through practical work.

Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into our units, supporting students in learning how to make their own creative choices and decisions, so that their art outcomes, whilst still being knowledge-rich, are unique to the pupil and personal.

All members of staff feel confident teaching Art at Newton as Kapow has a lot of resources to support them, including videos for adults to watch before the lesson to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD and videos to share with the children to show them techniques modelled by experts.

In Key Stage 1 and 2, Art is taught as a discreate subject. A unit is covered every big term in each class and each class covers the same principles at the same time as one another. For example, in the Autumn term all KS1 and KS2 classes will be learning to Draw. In Spring everyone will be covering Painting and Mixed Media and in the Summer term everyone will be doing Sculpture and 3D. (See Art Curriculum Overview below).

In Reception, pupils explore and use a variety of media and materials through a combination of child initiated and adult lead activities. They have opportunities to learn to:

• Explore the textures, movement, feel and look of different media and materials
• Respond to a range of media and materials, develop their understanding of them in order to manipulate and create different effects.
• Use different media and materials to express their own ideas
• Explore colour and use for a particular purpose
• Develop skills to use simple tools and techniques competently and appropriately
• Select appropriate media and techniques and adapt their work where necessary

As a school we invite a lot of artists to come in to school and work alongside staff and children. This helps with CPD as well as providing an unforgettable experience for the children involved.

Impact

We believe that by providing a quality Art curriculum, pupils should leave primary school equipped with a range of techniques and the confidence and creativity to form a strong foundation for their Art and design learning at Key Stage 3 and beyond.

We believe all children will:

• Produce creative work, exploring and recording their ideas and experiences.
• Be proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.
• Evaluate and analyse creative works using subject-specific language.
• Know about great artists and the historical and cultural development of their art.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Art and design.

To ensure this is the case, adults are continuously assessing the children in their class. During lessons, questions are encouraged, misconceptions are discussed and corrected and skills and knowledge are talked about. At the end of each unit adults will formally assess the class and fill out an assessment grid to show which children have achieved the objectives/skills, who are working towards that level and children who have exceeded expectations and show a real talent in the area.

In Reception, flags are raised for any children who struggle in this area of learning (Expressive Arts and Design) and they are given extra supportive activities to strengthen their needs. The children are then assessed against the Early Learning Goals at the end of the year, which are reported to parents.

The Art Lead monitors the teaching, learning and assessment in Art by

• doing drop in sessions to see Art in action,
• monitors the work produced in sketchbooks,
• audits of resources completed,
• tracking progress through teacher formal assessments
• children and staff interviews conducted to collect different points of view and to get a true sense of how Art is being taught and learnt in school.