Developing Young Artists

Our aim at Penponds School is to ensure that all children are inspired to create high-quality Art & Design equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design.

We believe that Art & Design should be about engaging, inspiring and challenging pupils to produce creative pieces of work, explore their ideas, record their experiences, evaluate and analyse.  In addition, we will ensure all our children know how Art & Design has shaped our local history and the contribution to our local environment and variety of the nation.

Our curriculum enables all children to experience rich planned Art and Design experiences. We ensure that all children learn about Art & Design through a variety of mediums. We use our outdoor environment, local and global artists and different mediums to provide the children with the fundamental skills they will use within their lives and to help them understand the impact of Art & Design within the world they live.   

In Art & Design lessons children will produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences, learn craft and design techniques building on prior understanding and skills across each year group, understand the historical and cultural development of art forms and their impact on today’s society.

The Art & Design Lead is responsible for supporting colleagues in their teaching, keeping them informed of current developments in the subject, and by providing a strategic lead and direction for Art & Design including following the school’s robust system for monitoring and assessing Foundation subject Art & Design.

Cornwall has a rich artistic heritage with some of Britain’s most influential artists having based themselves here. The art curriculum intends to teach children about Cornwall’s place in the artistic world as well as exposing them to the work of many great artists.

We are artists

Agreed teaching principles for Art:

•        A wide variety of materials are provided
•        Learning based on the work of artists, style of art and concepts is most powerful
•        High quality modelling is key to the teaching process
•        Building skill and knowledge will progress with repeated practice
•        Providing a safe space for creative exploration is essential
•        Time to evaluate and respond to own and other’s work is a key self-assessment tool
•        Teacher assessments are guided by the progression documents and taught objectives
•        Humanities and English led art outcomes provide purpose

Teaching Approaches and use of sketchbooks:

•      The use of high quality sketchbooks for practice, planning, designing
•      Teaching of key vocabulary and definition check.
•       Each lesson begins by looking at artwork by the focused artist.
•     Children will be encouraged to highlight key features and techniques used by the artist.
•       5 minute warm up in sketch books related to the taught process/technique identified
•       Sketchbooks to be taken on trips to bring opportunity for practising artistic skills
•       5 minute “draw what you see”, “draw how you feel”
•       Lessons teach specific knowledge and skills as outlined in the progression documents.

To be an artist I need to -

• Know that artwork is made up of different elements, often used together to make a final piece of art.
• Explore using a wide range of techniques in using the elements colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form (3D), value (light) and space
• Have a ‘Have another go until you’re happy’ attitude and be a ‘Risk Taker’
• Be reflective on own and other’s work and think about how to make changes to keep improving.