Art & Design

Quality of Education

At Uplands Junior School, we aim to provide our children with a broad range of opportunities within Art & Design, placing an emphasis on the importance on this subject area. Our art curriculum enables children to express themselves in a creative, imaginative manner and through exploration. We intend to teach the children a skills-based curriculum, with individuality and creativeness flowing through everything they do.

Our pupils should also know how art reflects and shapes our history, and contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation and beyond. Through our curriculum and our ‘Artist of the Month’ initiative, our pupils will also have knowledge of a wide range of renowned artists: their place in history; artistic style and some of their prominent works of art.

While at Uplands, we aim to provide our children with opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge through our exciting and engaging curriculum and quality first teaching. Progressive, stimulating and relevant lessons are taught with the purpose of artistic skills being embedded in each task. Children are encouraged to shape their own learning by bringing their own ideas, initiative and creativity to tasks set.

Every opportunity is made to link our learning to other areas of our school curriculum and relevant, inspirational worldwide artists. Our curriculum provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences as a way of responding to and understanding the world. It enables children of all abilities to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form, pattern and different materials and processes.

The programme of study meets the requirements of the National Curriculum 2014. Key skills are taught within art and applied in other subject areas where appropriate. Creativity and uniqueness will be celebrated and children will become astute at editing and improving the pieces they have created. As teachers, there will be an emphasis placed on individuality and children will be given the freedom to explore art using their imaginations. Children will have embedded the key art skills needed to allow them to produce inventive pieces of art.

All children are provided with a broad art stimulus, which builds upon their KS1 art knowledge and skills. Every opportunity is taken to make art enjoyable and engaging; this includes two annual celebrations of art through our ‘Uplands Take One Picture’ event during the Autumn Term and the ‘Uplands Arts Festival’ during the Summer Term, which cumulates in an exhibition showcasing work from every single one of our pupils.

The most recent addition to our curriculum offer in Art & Design is our ‘Artist of the Month’ ideas and initiative sketchbook, which enables all pupils to have regular and varied sketching and drawing experience using stimulus from a wide range of artists, that would not otherwise be included in our planned curriculum.

Children are taught within mixed ability class groups. The teaching of Art & Design provides opportunities for: group work, mixed ability work, whole class teaching, independent work, peer assessment and self assessment.

By implementing the intent, we aim that children at Uplands should be confident in the following areas:

recording from first-hand experience and from imagination;
selecting their own ideas for use in their work;
developing creativity and imagination through a range of complex activities;
developing the ability to control materials, tools and techniques;
increasing their critical awareness of the roles and purposes of Art and Design in different times and cultures;
developing the use of visual and tactile elements and materials.
fostering an enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts and a knowledge of artists, craftspeople and designers.

The assessment of art is undertaken bi-annually: teachers evaluate children across the range of skills taught and developed, judging them as ‘working towards’, ‘expected’ or ‘greater depth’ within their current year group expectations.

It is the role of the Art & Design champion to ensure continuity and progression across the whole school. This is carried out through the following opportunities: book trawls, learning walks, pupil voice, moderation meetings and working alongside the local network school to ensure standardisation of work.