Art Curriculum

Art, craft and design can and has embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their owns works of art, craft and design. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.

At Chopwell Primary School we provide a rich environment in which we encourage and value creativity.  Art is a hands-on activity that needs the teacher to be directly involved with the children in the lesson; to set the task, impart knowledge, to lead activities, to monitor and develop the children’s progress, to encourage development and to ensure that each child reaches an appropriate standard. Lessons in art and design are planned in a sequence, to show a development of skills, based on objectives specific to their year group, linking learning to current curriculum topics.  These learning objectives build on prior learning and develop art skills focusing on the six fundamental elements of Art and design:

• Drawing
• Painting
• Printing
• Collage/textiles
• Sculpture - including clay work
• Digital media

ChiChildren explore colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space when practising these fundamental elements, developing their creativity and mastery of techniques. Children of all abilities have opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge showing progression and challenge which they can record in their very own skills book.

Summer 1-Year 2

For our topic "Sensational Safari" we have been learning about Africa. We have looked at the colours and patterns used in African art and we have created our own animal collages using different patterns influenced by Africa. We know that different textures can make our art more interesting. We explored different textures to create our lion collages. 

Spring 2 - Reception

The children in reception have been learning about jungle animals. Using various materials the children have created a collage monkey hanging from a tree as well as a lion with a fabulous pasta mane. 

Spring 1 - Year Five and Six

The children in UKS2 have been practising blending techniques using oil pastels. They used these techniques to create their rainforest animals. 

To begin with, they used view finders to select interesting parts of the animals before sketching them on paper. They then used oil pastels to create shades of light and dark by blending colours to give a realistic effect. The results were truly outstanding!

Autumn 1 - Year Five and Six

The children in UKS2 had great fun this term sketching and shading various sea creatures. The children then experimented with mixing watercolours ready to paint underwater sea creatures and seascapes. 

Autumn 1 - EYFS

This term the children have been working on their fine motor skills and learning to make marks using, paints, pencils, chalks and pens. The children have also had the opportunity to paint firework pictures and mix colours just like Kandinsky. 

Lumiere

Our annual arts week culminates in our Lumiere Festival. Over the week every parent/carer is invited into school to work with their child to make a 3D structure that's  then lit up at the festival on Friday night. The themes usually follow the topics taught in school that term. Some of the topics were changed around to incorporate a space theme this year as we were lucky enough to have Astro-Adventurers with giant telescopes- star gazing and our partners NU:STEM giving space talks to the older children and reading space stories to the smaller children.