Art
“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.” - Neil Gaiman
Intent
At St. James' CE Primary School, the intent of our art curriculum is to inspire creativity, self-expression, and a deep appreciation for the visual arts in every child. Rooted in the National Primary Curriculum, our program encourages students to explore a wide range of artistic techniques, mediums, and traditions, helping them develop their skills progressively as they advance through the school. We aim to cultivate critical thinking, problem-solving, and visual literacy, enabling children to observe, interpret, and respond to the world around them. Our curriculum is designed to foster both independence and collaboration, allowing students to express themselves while also learning to appreciate the diverse perspectives of others. Through studying a variety of artists, cultures, and art movements, we encourage children to understand the historical and cultural significance of art, broadening their global and social awareness. Ultimately, the art curriculum at St. James' seeks to empower children with the confidence to experiment and innovate, while nurturing their emotional, spiritual, and intellectual growth in a supportive and creative environment.
Implementation
In an Early Years setting, art is hands-on and play-based, encouraging creativity and self-expression. Children explore various materials like paint, clay, and collage to develop fine motor skills and sensory awareness. Art activities are often linked to themes, fostering communication, emotional expression, and confidence, while allowing children to freely experiment with colors, shapes, and textures. Children from Year 1 to Year 6 are taught art discretely once per week in alternate terms (a total of 3 units per academic year). To support and inspire our young artists, we use an theme led approach based on the ‘Access Art’ curriculum. This ensures coverage and progression in all skills and knowledge relating to art. We plan an opportunity within each session to revisit artistic knowledge, skills and understanding that may need further consolidation or to use new knowledge to enforce prior skills. This will deliver a broad, rich, diverse, balanced and engaging art curriculum. In every art lesson, it is made explicit to pupils that they are being taught art. Our Art curriculum promotes all children to feel as if they have found an area of the visual arts that is engaging and relevant to them - that might be through drawing, making, designing or talking about art. Each art theme has cross curricular links and links with real artists that the students will study. Due to the numbers on roll, we use a rolling programme of planning as we have mixed age classes. When planning each unit, teaching staff ensure that the outcome for each year group is pedagogically appropriate, taking all of the above into consideration.