Art & Design

At Neville‘s Cross, our art and design curriculum is designed to engage, inspire and challenge our children. We value art and design as an important part of our children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. The structure of our art curriculum aims to equip our children with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design, providing a safe outlet to express their own individual interests, thoughts and ideas. We wish for our children to become creative, critical thinkers prepared to reach their full potential in their future lives. 

Our art and design curriculum is designed with our key curriculum drivers in mind:  

Creativity – we aim to provide a high quality, engaging art curriculum in order to enrich our children’s natural creativity and imagination. We provide our children with a range of experiences which allows them to see the enjoyment and satisfaction in the process of producing art. We work hard to create confident, independent artists who can articulate their own creative journeys. We encourage experimentation, risk and innovation and we aim to be less focused on the outcome and more focused on the creative journey. 

Well-being – we aim to provide our children with time and space to explore ways to be creative without the need to be perfect. We aim to create an ethos of not being afraid to make ‘mistakes’ but instead for children to be risk-takers, problem solvers and to develop resilience within art. We understand the importance that art and design can contribute to our children’s personal development in independence, judgement and self-reflection as well as an outlet for mindfulness, supporting their wellbeing.  

Our Communities – we aim to develop strong links with the creative, design and digital media industries involving adults with specialist skills from the local and wider community. We plan opportunities for learning outside of the classroom and offer children opportunities to collaborate with their peers to develop their art on a larger scale. We strive to present children with a diverse range of artists, crafts people, designers and architects so that they can experience ‘the arts’ from different cultures and periods of historical significance.

Art in the Early Years  

In the early years, art is encouraged from the very beginning of our children’s school experience. Within EYFS, children are immersed in art in a child-initiated way, through Expressive Arts and Design. We allow children to explore the early skills of drawing, painting, sculpture, digital art and printmaking within continuous provision and adult led tasks. This enables the beginning of their ‘art journey’ developing their natural sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them.  

Please see below for our EYFS progression document:

Art progression in Key Stage 1 and 2  

Art is carefully planned at Neville’s Cross to ensure our children are able to progressively develop and deepen their knowledge and skills as they move through school. Our children are encouraged to express their creative imagination as well as practising and developing mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, collage, printing, digital art and sculpture.  We pride ourselves on providing learning opportunities that are accessible and ambitious for all learners, enabling all children to make progress and have a sense of achievement. We achieve this through sequential planning, allowing skills to be scaffolded and extended as appropriate.  

Please refer to our art progression document below: 

Art  in Key Stage 1 

Please see below for our Key Stage 1 medium term plans:

Art  in Lower Key Stage 2

Please see below for our lower Key Stage 2 medium term plans:

Art  in Upper Key Stage 2

Please see below for our upper Key Stage 2 medium term plans:

Learning Links  

We recognise the value art plays in the teaching of other subjects, including the core subjects. Throughout EYFS and across both KS1 and KS2 children will have the opportunity to make links with learning in other subject areas.  Using history, geography and science learning as a starting point for planning, we can make meaningful links helping to strengthen and build connections in learning. We have also thought carefully about our local area and have used local artists to enhance our curriculum. For example, within our mining project in Y3 and 4 we study the work of  Norman Cornish. We contrast this with international artists, sculptors, designers and architects from a range of cultures and time periods to ensure that children can respect and enjoy a range of art and develop their personal responses and preferences.  

As well as this, we extend our art offer by providing children with opportunities to further their creativity beyond our curriculum; using our outdoor environment regularly, entering local art events and competitions, holding an annual whole school arts week, experiencing art workshops led by visitors, showcasing our work  and by offering after school art and craft clubs. We also take pride in displaying the children’s artwork as well as great artists and photographers around the school in our displays and hope to encourage the children to develop a language for art through discussing the artwork we expose them to. 

Impact

When children leave Neville’s Cross, our children will be able to apply and understand the skills, knowledge and processes they have been taught so that they are proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft, and design techniques. They will have experienced a range of inspiring artists, craftspeople, architects and designers and will have formed personal opinions about their favoured styles and techniques in art. Most importantly, children will leave Neville’s Cross knowing that it is okay to make mistakes along their journey. They will think for themselves and be critical about their own and other’s work; knowing how they can improve it or knowing when to stop if they are satisfied with their creative work. They will talk enthusiastically about their experiences in art and be able to share examples of their work which they are proud of.