Holy Cross Art and Design intent

Holy Cross Catholic Primary School understands that art helps to engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art. Our School is committed to encouraging pupils’ curiosity and creativity, allowing them to think critically and develop a thorough understanding of art and its place in the world, including how it reflects our history and contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.

By teaching art and design, we aim to ensure pupils:

• Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences.
• Become proficient in drawing and painting, sculpture and other art techniques.
• Can evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art.
• Know about great artists, architects, crafts-people and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
• Enjoy an active involvement in art.
• Have the confidence and skills to communicate their ideas through their artwork.
• Have opportunities to experience a broad and balanced range of art activities and show progression within these.
• Become visually literate and able to identify and apply the key elements of art.
• Are given equal access to the experience of art, regardless of their gender, race or disability.

Art and Design in the National Curriculum.

The national curriculum for art and design aims to ensure that all pupils:

• produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
•  become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
•  evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
•  know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Implementation

Subject content
Key stage 1
Pupils should be taught:

•  to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products
•  to use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
•  to develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
•  about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to their own work.

Key stage 2
Pupils should be taught to develop their techniques, including their control and their use of materials, with creativity, experimentation and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design.
Pupils should be taught:

•  to create sketch books to record their observations and use them to review and revisit ideas
•  to improve their mastery of art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpture with a range of materials [for example, pencil, charcoal, paint, clay]
•  about great artists, architects and designers in history.

In addition to our curriculum delivery, we ensure our pupils have access to a range of activities that provide a broad arts and cultural experience. We acknowledge how lucky we are to be situated in the city centre with a wealth of cultural venues on our doorstep. Pupils are given opportunities to visit galleries, museums and theatres throughout the year and we regularly collaborate with partners to run arts projects in school. 

Impact

By the end of Key Stage 2 pupils will have be secure in:

• their knowledge of tools, materials and equipment.
• their ability to record and communicate their design ideas in a clear manner.
• their personal qualities and attitudes towards their work.
• their ability to explain what they have created and how.
• their ability to use tools and materials safely and effectively.
• their ability to evaluate their work and the work of others.

We are designers!

We were inspired by the fashion designs of Sonia Delaunay and used bold, geometric patterns and a combination of harmonious and complimentary colours to create our own designs. 

Year 1 creating their final pieces on Henri Rousseau

Year 4 enjoyed creating Roman Mosaics. We used the research we had done previously to influence our design. 

Year 3 have been learning how to use primary colours to mix secondary colours.

Year 3 have been learning new painting techniques. This week they experimented with creating a wash of colour using watercolour paints. 

The children in Nursery are colour mixing using the puddles and powder paint. They mixed yellow and blue to make green and yellow and red to make orange.

Year 4 have been enjoying learning about Roman Mosaics in art. We researched different Mosaic designs, including; the Roman Maze design, the Celtic knot and geometric designs. We spoke about what features we would like for our own mosaic design. We then looked at a modern mosaic artist called Carrie Reichardt. We were amazed to find out that she had created a mosaic house in London! We then enjoyed creating a research page all about her and her work in our sketchbooks.

Year 4 Arts Award Project

Year four collaborated with The Bluecoat Arts Centre to curate a programme of arts events for children and families. The events all took place over the summer holidays at the gallery.  The children took part in a Dragons Den style process to interview and select theatre groups, story tellers, Illustrators and puppet-makers to run the workshops. Just before we broke up for summer the children visited the gallery to meet Gav Cross, one of their selected performers. 

As a result of the project the whole class Achieved their Explore Arts Award. Well done year 4!