‘Art, craft and design embody the highest forms of human creativity.’

Intent: What do we aspire for our children in art and design at The Epiphany School?

The Epiphany School art and design curriculum is designed to engage, inspire and challenge children whilst equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. They become progressively more proficient in the techniques of drawing, painting, sculpture, collage and printing. Our children: develop a love and appreciation for the visual arts; a knowledge of significant artists, craftspeople and designers; increase critical awareness of the roles and purposes of art and design in different times and cultures; and analyse works using the language of art and design.

We have designed an art and design curriculum which enables children to achieve excellence, through progressively knowing more and remembering more from EYFS to Year 6. This is achieved through increasingly challenging end points of learning. Children’s developing expertise means they build sufficient knowledge and skills that could enable them to achieve high degrees of specialism and proficiency in art.

Implementation: How do we deliver our art & design curriculum?

In our art and design curriculum, concepts are used as the big ideas within the subject discipline. These help pupils make sense of what they are being taught so that meaning can be made and connections formed; developing children’s growing schema within art and design. The disciplinary knowledge allows pupils to learn about meaning and interpretations; materials and processes; and the journeys and connections through time between art’s past, present and future. This knowledge puts into context much of the practical knowledge learnt in the art and design curriculum. Underpinning the curriculum, are our drivers of enquiry and vocabulary. Each unit of work has a sequence of smaller enquiry questions, building towards an overarching main enquiry question. This is supported by key vocabulary; identified and taught within each unit of work and built on from EYFS to Year 6.

Each unit of work will usually go through three core stages:

Take inspiration

Try out new ideas

Create a piece of art

Impact: How do we know our curriculum is effective?

Assessment: Assessment will take place in line with the school’s assessment policy. Identified key learning and end points of learning provide criteria by which to assess pupils, supporting teachers to ascertain what pupils know and can do. Teachers should assess pupils throughout teaching and plan subsequent teaching and learning in response to this. Assessment will take many forms including teacher observation, rich questioning, talking with pupils, marking and through pupil feedback.

High quality outcomes: Pupils should be articulate and knowledgeable about their learning. Work produced will be presented in a variety of forms such as sketchbooks, 3D models, paintings etc.

Monitoring: Monitoring activities may include pupil interviews, informal discussion with staff, looking at pupils’ work, examination of planning and learning walks in order to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum in meeting the intent.

Supporting documentation

• Whole School Curriculum Overview
• Art & Design Long term overview
• Long Term Plan for Expressive arts and design EYFS
• Long Term Plan for art & design KS1
• Long Term Plan for art & design KS2
• Progression in art & design: disciplinary knowledge
• Progression in art & design: practical knowledge (techniques)
• Medium Term Planning documents