Art and Design Curriculum at Moulton Primary School
At Moulton we follow the CUSP curriculum for Art. The Art curriculum is organised into blocks with each block covering a particular set of artistic disciplines, including drawing, painting, printmaking, textiles, 3D and collage. Vertical progression in each discipline has been deliberately woven into the fabric of the curriculum so that pupils can revisit key disciplines throughout their Primary journey at increasing degrees of challenge and complexity.
In addition to the core knowledge required to be successful within each discipline, the curriculum outlines key aspects of artistic development in the Working Artistically section. Each module will focus on developing different aspects of these competencies. This will support teachers in understanding pupils’ development as artists more broadly, as well as how successfully they are acquiring the taught knowledge and skills.
Central to the learning modules are activities designed to develop pupils’ oracy and vocabulary skills to enable them to use artistic language meaningfully when talking about their work and the work of others. These vocabulary modules are pivotal to unlocking core content within the teaching units and building pupils’ confidence and proficiency by engaging with learning more broadly.
Prior learning is mapped into every learning module to show and remind teachers of the previous provision pupils may have encountered. This enables teachers to orchestrate meaningful retrieval and connect past learning. This has an added benefit of giving new learning an organised place to be stored in the memory, and therefore retrieved. In the long-term sequence, we have deliberately planned it so that each block of unit is based around a type of skill or technique. For example, painting and drawing.
Intention:
Art and Design is a foundation subject at Moulton Primary School.
Our intention is that Art and Design teaching:
- Inspires children to experience awe and wonder. It stimulates curiosity, creativity and innovation.
- Gives children the chance to learn through being hands-on and finding things out for themselves to gain a wider skill set.
- Is exciting and practical, encouraging future generations to not only study Art and Design at secondary school, but also potentially to follow it as a career.
- Delivers the Art and Design knowledge and skills that pupils need to fulfil their potential and ensures all can take advantage of opportunities presented in later life.
- Is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards clearly defined, ambitious end points e.g. learning how to block print (Year 1) which will then move onto mono prints (Year 4) and will finally lead onto exploring the use of Batik in textile design in Year 6.
- Addresses any gaps in pupils’ prior knowledge and skills so that all pupils can enjoy and achieve in Art and Design regardless of any disadvantage or SEND.
Intentions translated into Classroom Implementation:
Art and Design Knowledge and Skills:
Teachers at Moulton Primary School follow the National Curriculum for Art and Design which builds skills and knowledge over time in a logical progression, systematically and explicitly so that all pupils acquire the intended knowledge and skills
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
In the EYFS, Art and Design is included within the Expressive Arts and Design area of learning. Our children mainly learn about Art and Design through carefully planned activities that are based around the theming of their class book.
Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
Each block is revisited each year but with increasing difficulty and with a slightly different focus each time e.g. Drawing is studied every year, with a very clear progression of knowledge and understanding over the six years: In Year 1 this involves: simple mark marking but by Year 6, this has developed into combining techniques to create abstract images. The progression of skills in the Art and Design curriculum will help children to become accurate, careful and confident artists. There is a clear progression of these skills e.g. in Year 1 a child is encouraged to explore mark making with paint using primary colours but by Year 6, they will be able to combine techniques to create the illusion of water and depth.
