Kaizen Primary School

Intent

At Kaizen Primary School, we value art as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Art provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas. Art embodies some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art.  As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art. They should also know how art both reflects and shapes our history, and contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. The importance of art is evident through several Art Days as well as an art week in Forest School in addition to regular art lessons throughout the year. Our curriculum celebrates artists of all colours, cultural and geographic backgrounds, ages and genders. BAME artists are studied as part of our art curriculum, with multi-ethnic and multicultural experiences for children.

Implementation

The teaching and implementation of the Art Curriculum at Kaizen Primary School is based on the National Curriculum ensuring a well-structured approach to this creative subject. We teach a skills-based art curriculum, which allows children to express their creative imagination as well as providing them with opportunities to practise and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting and sculpture. This is supported through the studying of key artists and the development of knowledge of their work. Lessons involve studying existing pieces of art, sketching aspects of these, with a particular focus on the necessary skills, before completing a final piece. Key knowledge is identified by the art leader and given to teachers to ensure that there is a progression of knowledge throughout the school. Each year group learns about the work of a range of artists (BAME artists and two other well-known artists), describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to their own work.  At Kaizen we split the terms between D&T and Art outcomes, with subjects alternating each half  term. The time dedicated to art ensures that each topic can be delivered to a high standard and children can create outcomes that are of a high quality. We understand that children have missed opportunities of learning because of the COVID outbreak and the resulting distance and blended learning models that were used in the previous school years. Our current teaching model ensures that any missed opportunities are addressed before teaching new concepts and topics. This pre teaching approach ensures that children are able to access the new learning and build upon their knowledge and skills. We also provide a variety of opportunities for art learning to take place inside and outside the classroom. Apart from an art week in Forest school, there is a Friday ongoing art station in the playground all year round for the children to freely access during their lunch breaks and an art club on Mondays after school. Students at Kaizen are encouraged to take part in different art competitions throughout the year (at school level, borough level and national level). Educational visits to art galleries and museums take place throughout the year in order to open their eyes to different ideas and perspectives. Supportive materials are in place to ensure staff have online CPD opportunities to develop their own skills and knowledge about artistic skills as well as developing knowledge about key significant artists. The work of famous national and international artists are explored to enhance the children's learning further.  Aspects of the art curriculum are embedded in learning within the provision of SEND learning to ensure that all children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum. Themes are planned throughout the year that allow for the art skills and knowledge to be embedded and built upon. Children with high levels of need have a broad curriculum offer, linking into National Curriculum themes, but with scaffolded learning which meets their needs, ensuring they are also making good progress from their initial starting points.

Impact

Our art curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work. Children’s learning evidences the four stages: generating ideas/knowledge/making and evaluation. In order to measure the impact of the art curriculum:

• teachers assess children’s understanding of each unit before and after the unit is taught, 
• summative assessments take place throughout the year and teachers record the progress and attainment against the National Curriculum expectations of attainment,
• there is a recollection of images and videos of the children’s practical learning,
• in Key Stage 1 & 2 their learning is recorded in sketch books so children can use them to review and revisit ideas, pupils are asked to fill in questionnaires about their learning after each unit is taught (pupil voice).

 Please click here to see the subject overview for Art.