Intent

”Art and design is not just a subject to learn, but an activity that you can practise: with your hands, your eyes, your whole personality.” Quentin Blake 

At Glebelands, we believe that art is important socially and for individuals on a personal level. Art reflects beliefs, fuels the imagination, encourages empathy and provides a doorway to the wider curriculum: religion, history and geography.  

Our ambitious curriculum enables children to think, work and communicate like an artist; exceptional teacher instruction inspires pupils to acquire knowledge as an artist and enables them to skilfully attempt and apply their understanding. 

Implementation

At Glebelands, Art and Design is taught as a discrete subject with a clear progression of subject specific knowledge and skills. The curriculum is designed to build upon skills from Foundation Stage to Year 6 in a systematic way with regular revisiting.  

Use of sketch books is key, providing an ongoing reference for ideas and techniques and links to our wider school curriculum where children also have opportunities to annotate and evaluate their work. They learn about the work of a wide range of artists and this is often the source of inspiration in terms of ideas and techniques. 

Our planning includes the application of art across the curriculum, studying religious paintings as part of the RE curriculum for example, and making inferences from the illustrations in the books that children are reading. 

Impact

Art is a key means of communication and our curriculum enables children to build the knowledge, skills and vocabulary they need to share their ideas creatively and to interpret the ideas of other artists. In the same way that literature can act as a mirror or open a child’s eyes to the wider world, art and design, when prioritised and well taught, widens children’s experiences beyond the ‘actual’. 

The impact of this is evident beyond the pieces of work that children produce; process is very important here. There is a positive impact on all manner of aspects of a child’s development such as empathy, inference skills, the ability to make links and the sense of well-being that creativity can bring.