Art and Design

Art Mission Statement

Art and Design at Applecroft aims to nurture the potential of each child as a budding artist. We aim to inspire the minds of our children through providing them with opportunities to be creative and explore their imagination through visual and tactile forms. We encourage determination and resilience through peer and self assessment and opportunities to adapt and improve work.

Art Curriculum Intent:

At Applecroft we value Art and Design as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. We teach children the skills, concepts and knowledge necessary for them to express responses to ideas and experiences in a visual or tactile form.

Our curriculum encourages them to express themselves in a creative and imaginative manner. It stimulates inventiveness through exploration of different mediums and tools and provides children with opportunities to develop and extend their skills.

Children learn the skills of drawing, printing, painting, collage, textiles and 3D work and are given the opportunity to explore and evaluate different creative ideas. Children are introduced to a range of works and develop knowledge of styles used by well-known artists. The skills they acquire are applied to their cross curricular topics, allowing the children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore topics in greater depth; for example, sketching historical artefacts in detail, researching geographical locations to support their work on landscape painting or using art as a medium to express emotion and thought to enhance their personal, social and emotional development.

Our Curriculum:

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS):

In our nursery and reception classes we follow the EYFS statutory framework, which sets out the seven areas of learning including Expressive Arts and Design. Children also learn about their class artists of Lowry, Matisse, Kandinsky and Seurat.

Key Stage One and Two:

In Key Stage One (Years 1 & 2) and Key Stage Two (Years 3-6), we follow the National Curriculum.

In Key Stage One the children learn to:

To experiment with drawing, printing, painting, collage, textiles and 3D work and digital art to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
To develop a wide range of art and design techniques through the use of colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
Learn about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers.

The children also learn about their class artists that include: Joan Miro, Georgia O’Keefe, Claude Monet and Andy Goldsworthy in key stage one.

In Key Stage Two the children learn to:

Develop their creativity by increasing their knowledge, skills and understanding of materials and processes
Pupils' experiences at this stage enable them to understand the diverse functions of art in the wider world
Pupils learn to improve their use of tolls and become confident in using a variety of techniques
Pupils increase their awareness of the purpose of art from historical periods and begin to ask themselves about the purpose, creation, materials and significance of a variety of art works

The children continue to learn about class artists as they move through key stage two that include, Vincent Van Gogh, Barbara Hepworth, Pablo Picasso, Bridget Riley, Anthony Gormley, David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Henry Moore.

Art and Design at Home

Tate Kids The Tate Modern YouTube channel has a range of exciting and inspiring videos, from learning about famous artist to learning how to paint with chocolate! Click on the link to get involved!