Art & Design Curriculum Statement

Intent

At Sacred Heart, our curriculum aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art.

We want to give our children the opportunity to develop their ability, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learning about the rich heritage and culture of the British Isles and beyond.

Implementation

We follow the ‘Kapow Primary’ scheme of work. Kapow Primary’s Art and design scheme of work 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.

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

Making skills
Formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern, colour)
Knowledge of artists
Evaluating

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 (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 (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 the ‘Every picture tells a story’ units and links to artists through practical work. Our units fully scaffold and support essential and age-appropriate sequenced learning and are flexible enough to be adapted to form cross-curricular links with your own school’s curriculum.

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 Key Stage 2 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 in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary.

Kapow Primary supports teachers who may lack confidence in their own artistic abilities. Pupil videos created by subject specialists help pupils to see art techniques modelled by experts, to ensure the delivery of Art in your school is of the highest quality. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Kapow has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full Art and design curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.