Art Curriculum at Culverstone Green Primary School 2024-2025

N.B. In Reception opportunities for Creative Development ongoing throughout the year and linked to children’s interests.

Intent:

At Culverstone Green Primary School we are passionate about ensuring all children can show their creativity, individuality and imagination. Art is a subject that allows all our children to show all these attributes as well as developing skills and knowledge around the subject. We use a scheme of work called ‘Kapow’ to support our teaching of Art. Kapow Primary’s revised Art and design scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. The scheme is written by experts in their field and designed to give pupils every opportunity to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about art and artists across cultures and through history. Kapow Art and design scheme of work aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. The scheme is written by experts and designed to give pupils every opportunity to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond. The scheme is adapted to meet the needs of all children at Culverstone Green Primary School.

Kapow supports pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets and has been written to fully cover the National Society for Education in Art and Design’s progression competencies. To extend the children’s own creativity we have added in our own opportunities at the end of each unit for the children to design or invent their own pieces of work that may be inspired by the artists they have learnt about and incorporates the skills they have been developing.

Implementation:

The Kapow Art scheme of work is designed with five strands that run throughout:

These are:

• Generating ideas
• Using sketchbooks
• Making skills, including formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern and colour)
• Knowledge of artists
• Evaluating and analysing.

Units are organised into four core areas:

• Drawing
• Painting and mixed-media
• Sculpture and 3D
• Craft and Design

Through Kapow Primary’s Art and design scheme of work, these strands are revisited in every unit. In our Art and design skills and our formal elements of art units, pupils have the opportunity to learn and practise skills discretely. The knowledge and skills from these units are then applied throughout the other units in the scheme. Key skills are revisited again and again with increasing complexity in a spiral curriculum model. This allows pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. 

Our curriculum overview (see document below) shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands. Our Progression of skills (see document below) shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. Kapow Primary’s Art and design curriculum develops pupil’s knowledge and understanding of key artists and art movements through practical work. Creativity and independent outcomes are robustly embedded into our units, supporting students in learning how to make their own creative choices and decisions, so that their art outcomes, whilst still being knowledge-rich, are unique to the pupil and personal. 

Lessons are always practical in nature and encourage experimental and exploratory learning with pupils using sketchbooks to document their ideas. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key knowledge and techniques learned, encouraging recall of skills processes, key facts and vocabulary.

Impact

We believe that by providing a quality Art curriculum, pupils will leave primary school equipped with a range of techniques and the confidence and creativity to form a strong foundation for their Art and design learning at Key Stage 3 and beyond.

 We believe all children will:

 Produce creative work, exploring and recording their ideas and experiences.

• Be proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques.
• Evaluate and analyse creative works using subject-specific language.
• Know about great artists and the historical and cultural development of their art.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Art and design.

 To ensure this is the case, adults are continuously assessing the children in their class. During lessons, questions are encouraged, misconceptions are discussed and corrected and skills and knowledge are talked about. End of unit assessments are completed to ensure children have acquired the knowledge and skills intended.

The Subject Leader monitors Art through learning walks, book looks, observations and ensures staff have the CPD needed to deliver the Art Curriculum.