Art and Design

Art at Lea

Our Art champion is: Mr Whiston

At Lea, we are artists! Through our art curriculum, we encourage creativity and imagination. It provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a special way of understanding and responding to the world. Our curriculum aims to inspire, engage and challenge children - enabling pupils to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form and pattern. Children will become involved in shaping their environment through art and design activities, involving different creative techniques. They will explore ideas and meaning through the work of artists and designers. Additionally, as they learn about the history, roles and functions of art, they can explore the impact that it has on contemporary life and that of different times and cultures. We pride ourselves on providing opportunities for children to acquire a detailed and connected knowledge of the Art curriculum. Pupils benefit from opportunities to revisit and build on their knowledge. This allows the children to grow in their understanding; increasing their enthusiasm for the topics whilst embedding this procedural knowledge into the long-term memory.

Substantive knowledge

Through their curriculum experience children will work through a range of disciplines: drawing, painting, printing, texture, collage, 3D work and digital art in order to explore the 7 elements. This is also the knowledge of known artists, their style and period of art.

Element	Definition
Line	A line is an element of art. It is a mark made upon a surface. In order to be a line, the mark's length must be longer than its width. There are many different types of lines, including horizontal, vertical, wavy, diagonal, and more.
Shape	Shapes are areas of enclosed space that are two-dimensional. Shapes are flat, and can only have height and width. The two different categories of shapes are: geometric and organic. Geometric shapes are mathematical, like circles and squares. Organic shapes come from nature, like clouds and leaves.
Colour	Colours have three main characteristics— hue (blue, red, green, etc.), value (spectrum of light and dark) and intensity (spectrum of bright and dark) — all contributing to what the colour communicates and how it is used. Artists vary the value and intensity of colour to create contrast within a composition.
Form	A form is a shape in three dimensions, and, like shapes, can be geometric or organic. Geometric forms are forms that are mathematical, precise, and can be named, as in the basic geometric forms: sphere, cube, pyramid, cone, and cylinder. A circle becomes a sphere in three dimensions, a square becomes a cube, a triangle becomes a pyramid or cone. Geometric forms are most often found in architecture and the built environment, although you can also find them in the spheres of planets and bubbles, and in the crystalline pattern of snowflakes, for example. Organic forms are those that are free-flowing, curvy, sinewy, and are not symmetrical or easily measurable or named. They most often occur in nature
Tone	Tone refers to the visible lightness or darkness of a colour. Tone is relevant to the lightness or darkness of any colour, but its importance is easiest to visualise in a work with no colours other than black, white, and a grayscale.
Texture	Actual, or physical texture, refers to the real tactical properties of a design. Think about this type of texture in terms of designing a wedding invitation – the thickness, weight (heavy or light), and feeling of the paper (smooth, rough, etc.), along with additional embellishments (glitter, flowers, etc.), all contribute to the overall feeling or mood about the invitations design. Visual texture is the illusion of texture, created by other design elements. Examples of this can be seen in photographs, paintings, and drawings
Space	In art, space refers to how a piece of artwork is organised – the area above, below, and within components of a piece. The relationship between these areas — foreground, background, and middle ground — is strategically utilised by artists to give the illusion of depth to a flat surface

Disciplinary knowledge in art is the interpretation of the elements, how they can be used and combined in order to create a specific and desired effect. It is also the critical evaluation of artists work; evaluating style and technique and having the ability to appraise a piece of work.

Implementation

At Lea, teachers create a positive attitude to being creative within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Art. Our Art curriculum is carefully sequenced from the Early Years and uses the National Curriculum and Early Years Framework as its starting point as well as the excellent KAPOW units. The children will cover an art topic at least once every other term.

At Lea, we will achieve this by:

• Teaching art regularly. additional opportunities to engage with art and design activities throughout the school year and extra curricular clubs are offered.

• Linking art as closely as possible to the topic for the term, to ensure relevance and context.

• Teaching a predominantly skills-based curriculum, which covers drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles and printing.

• Re-teaching skills throughout the children’s time in school. Skills are revisited and honed in a spiral curriculum, which progresses in terms of depth and challenge, to build on the children’s previous learning.

• Ensuring that each child develops their skills and techniques in a way appropriate to them, through clear differentiation and support, active and purposeful experiences, and using a variety of art materials and teaching strategies.

• Introducing children to artists and art movements directly linked to the skills or topics they are covering.

• Utilising a sketchbook approach, so that children feel safe to experiment and take risks, without the fear of doing something “wrong”.

• Openly promoting art and design as a possible further study or career choice.

• Encouraging each child to evaluate their art and design work and that of others, both with peers and adults

. • Celebrating effort, progress and achievement in art through displays, exhibitions and enrichment activities, such as trips out and competitions.