Art & Design

Intent – what do we want the children to learn?

It is our intention that every pupil, irrelevant of needs, develops such a passion for Art and Design that they seek out and embrace amazing opportunities to develop their creative and imaginative passions in school and at home. We want all our pupils to experience a wide and varied Art and Design Curriculum, which leaves them artistically curious. We wish for every pupil to develop their skills in all areas of art and design through becoming inspired by others, designing and developing their ideas and evaluating their finished pieces.

At Birchwood we know that children learn best when the curriculum is well sequenced to enable revisiting of core knowledge, skills and understanding to deepen conceptual awareness before demanding application across the whole curriculum. Please see the Art and Design Progression of Skills documents (held in school), which outline how the key skills are developed, revisited, assessed and built upon during Year 1 to Year 6. See Food For Life Policy for additional cooking and nutrition progression.

Bespoke Curriculum:

• The whole school has created work linked to a topic to enter into a local art competition. The money raised goes towards Cancer research and the artwork was displayed in the art gallery in Aldeburgh.
• A local professional artist and sculptor has been into school and led workshops with the children to create 3D sculptures made using recycled materials.
• The children also have many cookery experiences with Caterlink but also teachers and often use lots of the produce that has been grown in the school gardens.
• Through the use of our local resources, children’s interest and enthusiasm is enhanced, as is their knowledge of the area in which they live.

Implementation – How are we going to achieve our intent?

Art and Design is taught every week in all year groups. The teachers refer to the art long term plan for their skill progression. Each year the children will focus on developing 3 out of the 6 key skills. The skills are taught on a two year rolling plan program so all 6 skills are taught over the two years. The 6 key skills are:

• 3D and sculpture
• Collage
• Drawing
• Painting
• Printing
• Textiles

Impact – What will it look like when we have achieved our intent?

There are literally hundreds of ways we can demonstrate the excellent impact our curriculum design has on our pupils. In a nutshell, here are some examples:

• The whole school enter into regional competitions such as Young Art East Anglia. The competition raises money for Cancer Research and allows the children to create a piece of work to be judged by some creative, inspiring and professional judges.
• We have entered into larger National Art competitions, such as Global Art Canvas. We entered a collaborative competition. As a school we created an exhibition around the theme ‘Habitats of the World’.
• We have hosted a Birchwood Art Gallery in school. Each child created a piece of art that was then been framed to create the most amazing gallery in our atrium.
• The children’s Art work is displayed in the underpasses in Kesgrave.