Welcome to St Peter’s Art Curriculum Page

 

Here at St. Peter's we are excited to be able to share with you, our new art curriculum. It is designed to inspire and enable high quality visual arts teaching and learning. We are really proud of this creative curriculum as both children and teachers enjoy the journey and the outcomes. 

Our Access Art programme of study has been developed by a team of art specialists with many years of experience and so our children are exposed to a high-quality art and design curriculum which engages, inspires and challenges pupils, equipping both staff and children with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design.

As pupils progress throughout the school, they show progression in critical thinking and understanding of art and design. They also develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of many great artists and their artistic styles with these skills being built on in each academic year.

We intend to deliver the National Curriculum in an engaging and exciting way which allows pupils to produce creative work and enthusiastically explore their ideas whilst becoming proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques. Children are enthused to celebrate both their own and others’ work as well as learning how to analyse and evaluate other creative works in order to develop their own personal style and to develop a rounded appreciation of the arts. 

 

 Introduction to Art and Design

Art, craft and design 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 own 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."     National Curriculum (2014)

So…   What does this look like at St Peter’s? 

Our Art Vision

We know that great Art happens in our school when…

1. Our curriculum is both knowledge rich and gives children the opportunity to use skills which show progress throughout their time at St. Peter's.
2. The children are engaged in creative, imaginative and inspiring activities, where they use a range of skills.
3. There are opportunities for children to think critically and understand the impact their thinking has on the wider world, through engaging with a diverse range of artwork and artists.
4. Children are motivated and have a critical understanding of how art impacts on daily life.
5. Children are happy to take risks, experiment and work resourcefully because our children's traits are nurtured.

What do our children say about Art?

“I am proud of my sunflowers and starry night picture.” Monira

“I enjoy art because it is a way of expressing yourself without talking, you can draw what you feel.” Esaam

“Van Gogh showed us light and dark colours, he used light colours when he was happy and dark colours when he was sad.” Mackenzy

“Art makes me feel joyful and it helps me to relieve my stress.” Hadi

“When I have completed my art work I feel proud because I have worked so hard on it and it is brilliant to stand back and enjoy the finished piece.” Jayden

 

In our Sketch Books you will see artwork inspired by a diverse range of artists as well as developing our own style by practising our techniques and skills taught. We try to reflect on our work within these books by sticking in post-it notes to express our thoughts and feelings about our own artwork or that of our peers.

Art in our school - 

Autumn 2024

Yr 1 have been inspired by the artist Molly Hasland who used her body to create large scale art. For our unit on Spirals the children went outside and used gross motor movements to create their own spirals. 

 

The children then explored creating spiral snails and applied new techniques such as blending and smudging to create their finished piece. The children at the end of the lesson then walked around and had the opportunity to look at each other's work and comment on what they liked and why. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring, 2024

February, 2024

Next week I am going to be having a peek in Year One and Two's books, I can't wait to see what they have been up to!

I have just been for a little walk through our Nursery and Reception classes to see what Art skills they are practising today. What a pleasure it was!

In Reception the children were creating pictures using different materials.

In Nursery, the children were creating junk model houses for one of my son Francis's favourite books - THE THREE LITTLE PIGS! This little boy was just working on attaching his chimney, I do hope it is a strong enough house for that Big Bad Wolf to not be able to blow over!

January, 2024

In Year Five the children have been expressing emotion by replicating the style of Georgia O'Keefe.

In Year Four we have been looking at Picasso and trying our best to imitate his style when drawing portraits. We loved looking closely at Picasso's cubism technique and noticing that in his art work half of the face is looking in one direction and the other half of the face is looking sideways on. Well done Year Four! 

 

Autumn, 2023

December, 2023 - 

We teamed up with our local Food Bank to take part in a Christmas Card competition this month. Unfortunately we didn't win any prizes with the Food Bank but I was so proud of the whole school's efforts and so I ordered some prizes from my Art budget. (Frustratingly I have deleted the picture I took of the children recieving their prizes and certificates during our Celebration Assembly) Nevertheless, a big well done to Mina in Year One, Tahmid in Year Three, Mia in Year Four, Madina Noor in Year 6. I hope you enjoyed your prizes, I was very proud!

This morning I have had a little sneak around EYFS to see how they are working on their Art skills within their areas of provision. It was lovely to see Reception had Christmas calendars waiting for them to decorate (when they came back in from their morning of Forest School). The children are going to be using pegs and pom-poms to decorate their Christmas trees with paint. What great fine motor skills Reception!

The children in Nursery were making their own Christmas cards with a teacher. Next to this activity I spotted two children putting on their aprons by themselves and grabbing the paint brushes and crayons so they could work at the easel. How lovely it was to spend some time with you children!

We entered our local Food Bank's Christmas card competition. The theme of the competition was 'It's Good to Share' and the children's competition entries were so fabulous that I have decided to hold my own competition. I have chosen winners from each year group because it was truly such a hard decision. The winners will be announced in next week's end of term Celebration Assembly. When the winners have been announced I will put their competition entries on here for all to see!

October, 2023 -

Year 3 have been using different grades of pencil to shade and show tones and textures using Anselm Kiefer as their Artist study. We know Anselm Keifer's art is based on what he saw growing up in a country that was still trying to rebuild from the aftermaths of World War Two. Look at how Maryam has used the different grades of pencil to show the tone of the Anderson Shelters.

Here at St Peter's we don't forget the skills that we have previously learned. In Year 4 we have revisited our Year 2 learning of using a viewfinder to focus on a specific artefact but we have used this focal point to encourage us to use line and tone to represent figures and forms in movement.

Year 5 have been researching the work of Panayiotis Tetsis and replicating his style, it is lovely to see the children building on their Year 3 skill of creating a background using a wash to replicate the style of this artist.

September, 2023

Well done Hasan, you have settled into Year 1 so well and you are learning fundamental Art skills by being able to use pencils to create lines of different thickness. Learning the affect you can create with lines will help you with the rest of your Art and creative journey.

I always love to see the children in Year 2's work when they start to experiment with making secondary colours, well done Ayaat! 

The children in Year 6 had a fantastic visit to the Lowry Museum. This complemented their Art knowledge because they have been using Lowry as their focus Artist whilst practising using different shades of pencils. When Mrs Killgariff came into Year 4 to help us with our Christmas Card designs she shared lots of the tips that the children were taught whilst on their Lowry visit. Mrs Kilgariff told us to use our pencils very lightly so that we can rub out our mistakes, she also said to hold our pencils very loosely so we can create marks of different textures. 

Look at the work the children came back and created.

The children in Year 4 are learning how to use lines and marks to show texture. We have been exploring our playground this afternoon and trying to find different textures to recreate using our pencils.

Now we have all moved year groups our Leaders of the Future display has been updated. Each year I am blown away by the different choices of careers our children are aspiring to be. I am so lucky that this display is right outside my classroom and it makes me smile every time that I walk past it. Well done children.

Summer, 2023

During our Transition days every year group used their Art skills to complete a project using the book The Artist by Ed Vere as their inspiration. It has been wonderful to see the children's work displayed in their new classrooms. Look at the work our children have produced -

Reception - Combine different media

Year 1 -Explore colour and collage materials to create pictures

Year 2 - to know how to create a repeating pattern in print

Year 3 - to know how to use charcoal, pencil and pastel to create art

Year 4 - to know how to create a background using a wash

Year 5 - to know how to integrate my digital images into my art

Year 6 - to know how to organise line, tone, shade and colour to represent figures and forms in movement

May, 2023

Year 5 have printed using inspiration from of Alfred Wallis’s art. They have looked closely at his work and taken inspiration from the fact his work is not created to scale. They combined digital media to make their own art in his style.

Today they were evaluating their art and applied new learned vocabulary to their evaluations.

We are all going to be teaching Art during Summer 1 (except Year 2). I can’t wait to pop into the lessons and take a peak at your Sketch and Scrap books to see what you are getting up to.

Spring, 2023

Year 3 completed their Natural Disaster’s Art unit by combining digital media with their own media. They had lots of different natural disaster themed art to choose from. I was blown away with their final pieces. Well done Year 3!

Our lovely Year 2 teacher Miss Hilton is running an ‘Inspiring Artists’ afterschool club. This week (12th January, 2023) Key Stage 1 have been using Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers as their inspiration! They have brightened up the classrooms with their own versions!

Autumn, 2022

Year 5 visited our local museum to design, make and decorate their own Ancient Greek pots. What big smiles – well done Year 5!

Here in Year 3 we are almost at the end of our Stone Age to Iron Age History unit. We have loved learning about this period of time in our History lessons. We made our own Cave Paintings. We painted onto sandpaper to try and recreate the bumpy texture of the cave. We used natural coloured paints like yellow, orange, red and brown as the paints in the Stone Age would have been sourced from the dyes of flowers, charcoal and burnt bones! Finally, we used sticks for our paint brushes because the Cave Men would not have had ample paint brushes to choose from. Well done Year 3 I will really miss this creative display in our classroom next half term!

(18th October, 2022) This morning I snuck into our Early Years to see what Art I could spy with my little eye! It was a very Autumnal themed environment and the children were all so excited to talk to me about the Pumpkin they were investigating.

Over in the creative area in Nursery I saw children collaging Autumn leaves using different tissue paper.

There were also some children painting the Autumn leaves they had spotted whilst out on their Autumn walk.

Over in Reception the children were collaging Pumpkin pictures, they had the choice of tissue paper, sparkles, glitter and fabric as their different mediums. The children were also painting Autumn trees but their trees weren’t any old trees, their trees were made from their hand print! Mya loved telling me that she had painted her hand and she was painting her fingers to add the different coloured Autumn leaves to her tree.

Well done Early Years I loved playing Art I spy with you!

Myself and Mrs Bridges have hosted a Space and Sustainability Art competition in honor of Space Week this year. It was so hard for us to choose our Phase Winners and we hope they were so pleased with their prizes. We have updated our Science and Art display in the hall with the work the children created, we are so proud of them all!

Year 6 have been using a viewfinder to focus on the detail Lowry included, well done Year 6!

 

The corridor leading to Key Stage 2 has had a little update and it has been decorated with our whole school Leaders of the Future display. At Saint Peter’s we teach our children that they can be whatever they want to be in life and that through hard work and dedication any career is possible. Ofcourse I would love for all our children to be Artists but I am a little biased. Have a look at our children’s exciting aspirations…

 

INTENT

We follow the National Curriculum Guidelines and these are incorporated into our topic overviews. This provides children with opportunities to ensure that investigating and making includes exploring and developing ideas and evaluating and developing work to develop their skills using a range of media and materials. “Art develops spiritual values and contributes a wider understanding to the experience of life, which helps to build a balanced personality.” Bridget Riley, Painter.

IMPLEMENTATION

Through a broad and balanced curriculum the aims for Art are to ensure that all pupils:

• Are offered opportunities to stimulate their creativity and imagination by providing visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a unique way of understanding and responding to the world.
• Learn about the function of art, craft and design in their own lives and in different times and cultures
• Learn how to make thoughtful judgments and aesthetic and practical decisions
• Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
• Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
• Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
• Know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
• Become visually literate and to develop their individual capacity for imaginative and original thought.

IMPACT

Our Art Curriculum is of a high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes;
• A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school;
• Pupil discussions about their learning; which includes discussion of their thoughts, ideas, processing and evaluations of work.