Art
Intent
At Kerr Mackie Primary School, we value art as a subject, to inspire and develop our children’s creative thinking and to develop their cultural, spiritual and moral understanding. We teach our children to be reflective of their work and respectful of others. We understand that making mistakes is how we learn and this creates a safe space for our children to explore, experiment and take risks without fear of getting it wrong. This is the basic essence of what art offers our children.
We take inspiration and develop our curiosity from famous artists and the world around us, learning more about them and their style, which we then apply to our own work. We plan and teach sequenced art lessons based on skills, using a range of media. We encourage curriculum enrichment through art, to further enhance our subject knowledge and our desire for learning.
Implementation
At Kerr Mackie Primary School we teach art through a skills based curriculum. The skills are developed and built upon each key stage so that progression can be seen clearly across the school and the children can be confident in a range of mediums. All children are exposed to a range of media each year giving them the opportunity to explore, develop and embed their skills and understanding of that media, from our youngest children in Early Years to our eldest in Year 6. During each lesson progress will be assessed in a range of ways. The children will be aware of the skills they are developing and will be able to look back on what they achieved before. Through, self and peer evaluation the children will discuss what they have done well and what they will need to continue to practise and develop in order to continue to improve their skills in that particular area. The teacher will also make suggestions and refer back to previous modelling to support the children. It is also incredibly important however, that our children feel empowered and open to making mistakes. In art there is no right or wrong as it is all a matter of interpretation. While drawing, for example, may not be a strong area for one pupil, they may find sculpture easier to grasp. It is this openness and acceptance that will allow our children to take risks in art. It is when we take risks that our learning can truly flow and all our children can become artists.
Impact
At the end of each year the children will have been exposed to a wide variety of different media, giving them the opportunity to use it in a different way or for a different purpose and develop a range of skills. This will build upon their prior knowledge of what they can do when using this media. Our lessons are accessible for all of our pupils and they are proud of what they have achieved. They will be able to look back at their earliest work in their sketch books and see the progress they have made.
We aim to make the most of pupil voice and give children an opportunity to have an impact on their own learning, encouraging them to embrace and care for their artwork. As art is subjective, we want to limit the restrictions that is placed upon such structured lessons and allow the children to challenge themselves to be as creative as possible.
Our approach of being open and accepting of mistakes will not only help to develop our children’s creativity within Art but will extend to other areas of their lives. There are many key life skills that will be developed through our attitude and teaching of Art which will support our children as they move on after Kerr Mackie and into the wider community; such as respecting others and their work even if we don’t like it personally, or carrying on after something goes wrong or when things do not turn out how we planned. This resilience is a key skill which our children will need throughout their lives.
