Curriculum Overview

We aim to provide a curriculum that allows students to be expressive, whilst developing skills in a wide range of different media. We encourage pupils to explore visual and tactile outcomes whilst communicating their ideas.

Students work with traditional techniques and materials as well as with new media. We strive to develop confidence, competence, imagination and creativity. Students learn to appreciate and value images and artefacts across times and cultures, and to understand the contexts in which they were made. We encourage students to research a range of past and contemporary artists from a variety of fields.

We aim to enrich our curriculum by running trips and providing clubs after school. We showcase students' hard work and achievement with an end of year art exhibition.

Intent

Art is the expression of creative skills and imagination through a range of media. The study of art opens students' minds to different styles of art from around the world and throughout history.

Implementation

Teachers will:

• Plan and deliver lessons to develop the skills necessary to produce original work as students explore and record their ideas creatively;
• Promote imagination and independence through carefully planned tasks and groupings ;
• Ensure the curriculum is focused on the progression and continuity of skills over time to help students to develop fine motor skills to become proficient in drawing and other media including paint, print, textiles, sculpture and digital media; 
• Promote the sketchbook as a tool for students to organise their ideas and influences when planning, critiquing and producing their work;  
• Provide frequent opportunities to talk about art demonstrating an increasingly sophisticated use of technical language and articulating an understanding that there are no rules in art, but you must be able to justify your thought process;
• Provide opportunities for students to learn to critically talk about the approaches and techniques of artists and to apply these in their own work; 
• Expose students to the work of artists that equally represent the racial mix that characterises the UK as well as artists from now and the past and from the UK and across the world; 
• Plan the curriculum to ensure the delivery of every students’ entitlement to visit galleries and art in the community, as well as accessing the world of art through digital means;  
• Celebrate students’ work through classroom displays, school exhibitions and competitions throughout the GLC and the wider community;
• Provide opportunities for students to work in groups to foster confidence and creativity but as they progress they will increasingly work independently as they develop their personal responses to an artistic brief.

Impact

Students will:

• Be able to articulate a knowledge of, and appreciation of art in many forms, styles and contexts;
• Be able to produce art works with skill and creativity justifying the artistic intention underpinning the work;
• Have a lifelong interest in art.