Art at The Bay

Intent

Art at The Bay provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences for all pupils no matter their ability or understanding. Exposure to creative opportunities allows freedom of creativity for our young minds. 

By the time that they leave the Primary site, pupils at The Bay will be prepared to access the Art curriculum offer at the Secondary site. They will also be familiar with exploring their concept of creativity within their own sketchbook. Children will be familiar with the use of sketch books for their personal exploration and be able to respond knowledgably to the work of artists. 

As they pass through the school, children at The Bay will acquire a range of creative and artistic skills. They will be aware of different art forms and how artworks are created in different manners by different artists. They will be familiar with some artists and be able to discuss their artworks critically. 

 The Artist of the Month includes people from various cultures to ensure children’s exposure to a variety of cultural art. This, combined with the exposure to BAME artists within the curriculum, ensures that we are promoting the British Value of Mutual Respect. The British Value of Individual Liberty is promoted through the use of choice as children get to UKS2. Their curriculum allows for opportunities for pupils to choose which medium they would like to use for certain parts of their learning. 

Sharing and celebrating pupil work is important to us at The Bay. We encourage pupils to take pride in their work and share the progress that they have made in their learning both in and out of school. 

Implementation

At The Bay, every child accesses four hours of Art lessons each term which are taught according to the Kapow overview. 

The Kapow scheme will be used by teaching staff to enable them to ‘pick up and go’ with lessons that they simply need to resource. Teaching staff will be able to follow collections of lessons which they can use to support the pupils with practising and embedding skills. This way teachers do not need to make tenuous links to the current Learning Experience but can instead have standalone Art lessons. 

 Over their time at The Bay, children are taught: painting, drawing, printing, sculpture, collage, inks and more.  Digital art will be taught for the first time this academic year. This year, Year 1 will have a focus on larger scale artwork to support the development of gross motor skills which in turn will support the development of children’s handwriting.  

Children’s work examples are shared between teachers and classes, in the newsletter and on our Facebook page. Artwork children have created at home is also shared on the Primary Artwork Padlet (which is also then celebrated within the newsletter). There will be opportunities throughout the year for children’s work to be exhibited both in school and out of school in galleries. Over the last year we have had work exhibited at the Quay Arts Centre and at the Steam Railway.

Over the coming year, the Artist of the Month will be shared widely with the children and there will be class based opportunities for discussion around this artist and their works. 

Art Appreciation question stems will be re-shared with staff to provide discussion prompts. These allow children the time to critique artwork using art related vocabulary. 

The 5-8 curriculum and planning documents to support this will be shared with teaching staff once complete. 

Impact

The impact of our new Art curriculum is evidenced through pupil outcomes, coverage and pupil enjoyment. Our pupils are assessed against the skills which they have been taught in each unit of learning, which is recorded as their end of unit assessment. Pupils use self assessment within their lesson time to assess how they feel that they have done. We believe that good pupil outcomes are measured in how well equipped pupils are with the key skills and knowledge of the formal elements of Art, in addition to their ability to discuss and critique artworks.

Our new curriculum, combined from Kapow and units being compiled by subject leads to support with transition to Secondary, is being well implemented and staff appear to enjoy using it. The feedback from pupils states that lessons are enjoyable and they are learning lots.

At present, it is clear that children have developed their understanding of sketchbook use but we of course have space for development with this.

Pupils leaving our Primary site are better prepared for their Secondary Art learning than those leaving other schools. 

Pupil engagement with home learning activities had been low but the introduction of the Padlet has seen pupils sharing their own work which has not been created in the constraints of a ‘challenge’.  

Progress from baselines in sketchbooks or physical baselines has been good. Children have demonstrated good progression across their unit of learning. This demonstration of skill shows that pupils have grasped what has been taught.

The curriculum is having an effect on all pupils because it provides opportunities for sensory exploration, the freedom to explore creatively and provides small steps for development through the skills. 

The Bay’s Artsmark Statement of Commitment has been submitted and we continue to work towards the Statement of Impact document which outlines the impact of teaching, delivery and extracurricular opportunities at The Bay CE School.

What pupils say about Art at The Bay:

Children at The Bay have a dialogue about artists and artwork, facilitated through their art lessons and the artist of the month. 

“Mrs Frankling, I didn’t know that colouring could be so fun!” Year 3 pupil attending Colouring Club."

“I think that it’s fun because we do different stuff and we use pastels, chalk and more.” 

“It is great as they provide you with different supplies and different activities.” 

“It’s fun and I wish we could do even more.” 

“It is fun and I think you can get really creative with it.” 

“Art is a creative subject that everybody enjoys and it makes you feel creative and it calms you down and it’s a wonderful discovery.”

Curriculum information

Click here to Art Curriculum Overview

Click here for Skills Progression documents

Artsmark

We are beginning a very exciting journey working towards achieving the Artsmark.