Art at Sacred Heart

“Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, to inspire and motivate.”

Harvey Fierstein

Intent: 

At Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, we believe that high-quality Art lessons will inspire children to think innovatively and develop creative procedural understanding. We value Art and Design as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum as it provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thought and ideas.

In Art, children are expected to be reflective and evaluate their work, thinking about how they can make changes and keep improving. This should be meaningful and continuous throughout the process, with evidence of age-related verbal and written refection. Children are encouraged to take risks and experiment and then reflect on why some ideas and techniques are successful or not for a particular project. In addition, we strive to broaden children’s horizons about different artists, their work as well as different methods used for the art piece.

Implementation: 

Our Art curriculum provides children with opportunities to develop their skills using a range of media and materials. Children learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, collage, textiles, 3D work and digital art and are given the opportunity to explore and evaluate different creative ideas. Children will be introduced to a range of works and develop knowledge of the styles and vocabulary used by famous artists. The skills they acquire are applied to their cross-curricular topics, allowing children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore topics in greater depth; for example, by sketching historical artefacts in detail, researching geographical locations to support their work on landscape painting or using art as a medium to express emotion and thought to enhance their personal, social and emotional development. Many areas of art link with mathematical ideas of shape and space; for example when printing repeating patterns and designs and thinking about 3D shapes to support structures. It is paramount that art work be purposeful; be this as a means of expression or to explore the styles of other artists that inspire our own work. Pupils should be clear what the intended outcomes are and have a means to measure their own work against this.

In order to implement the above, each child is equipped with:

• A sketch book which allows the progression of skills, planning their artwork as well as evaluating it
• A portfolio of child’s work throughout the years; each year starting with a self-portrait to show progression in skill application

Teachers and support staff delivering Art thorough school have access to knowledge organisers which outline knowledge (including vocabulary) all children must master in a particular year group.  In order for the children to take pride in their work and recognize their value, the artwork is displayed and celebrated in their classrooms as well as around the school.