At Horsforth Newlaithes Primary School, we want to expose the children to a broad range of artists, styles and periods that reflect the diversity of our local community and the wider world. We want the children to learn and develop practical skills and techniques in drawing, painting, sculpture, collage and printing and for these skills to be honed over the years through regular revisiting.
The children should learn how artists use different techniques to convey emotions and how meaning is created and communicated. They should develop their knowledge into the use of colour theory; how colour is used to communicate and the methods used to replicate colour. They should build a bank of specific vocabulary to appreciate and evaluate works of art and specific styles and periods throughout history. Art and Design should stimulate creativity and imagination and enable children to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form, pattern and different materials, techniques, effects and processes. We want to give the children a wide breadth of visual, tactile and sensory experiences to excite and inspire them.

Careful consideration has been given to our choice of artists and themes to ensure that the work completed in each year group is underpinned by our curriculum drivers and helps to build the children’s cultural capital, as evidenced in our art spine. Consideration has also been given to the topics covered in other areas of the curriculum by each year group so, where possible, cross curricular links can be made. Art is taught as a discrete subject and three art units will be taught each year. In KS1, the children may also choose to follow an interest in art through their independent learning time.

The children will study a wide range of different artistic periods spanning history, from ancient art to modern day architecture. They will study artists that reflect all walks of life, look at urban and natural art from around the world and consider how art can be sustainable. They will use a range of materials and will have the opportunity to work with materials more than once, to consolidate and improve their technical skills. Our work is centered around three threshold concepts.:

• Develop ideas
• Master techniques
• Take inspiration

Three distinct knowledge categories: colour theory, visual language and emotions, will be taught and deepened each year. During KS1, the children study all five disciplines: drawing, painting, scultpure, collage and printing. In KS2, painting, drawing and sculpture are taught every year. Lower key stage two will focus on collage and upper key stage 2 will focus on printing. This structure gives the children opportunity to practice, consolidate and deepen their understanding of these techniques year on year. Our progression in skills document maps out the key milestones for each area of art. The children will develop their use of sketchbooks as they progress through the school. Sketchbooks will be used as a tool to record observations, research, develop ideas, test materials and plan. Within each art unit the children will: take inspiration, develop ideas, master skills and evaluate their work. We teach children to regularly reflect on their work as it develops, to adapt or improve it in order to realise their ideas and to explain and justify changes made.
Early Years have their own carefully designed long term plan, based on the Early Years Framework, which takes into consideration the needs and interests of the children. They focus very much on the school drivers and intertwine these with art learning throughout.

We aim for all children at Newlaithes to be competent artists and to reach the expected standard in art at the end of each year. Our curriculum ensures that children develop an interest in and a love of art which enables them to be effective learners throughout their journey at Newlaithes and fully prepared for the next stage of their art education.

We have developed our art curriculum based on the National Curriculum, identified the key skills and knowledge which we want children to learn and consequently make judgements against this criteria during and at the end of the year enabling us to measure the impact teaching and learning has. The majority of assessment which takes place is formative assessment allowing teachers to adapt their planning to match the needs of the children.

The art subject leader monitors the impact of the art curriculum through protected monitoring time during which they complete a range of activities: lesson observations; scrutiny of planning and work; speaking to staff and children and analysing assessment data (introduced summer 2022). This process is quality assured by the Senior Leadership Team and agreed actions are added to subject leader action plans.