Art

Art

We aim to promote your child's enjoyment of art and to allow for the expression of their ideas, thoughts and feelings through a variety of two and three dimensional media as well as studying a range of artists and crafts people. This will develop the important areas of their visual perception and visual literacy as well as art appreciation.

We contribute to local arts projects and instalments.We also enter local competitions promoted by the local Rotary club (Appleby) and Art in the Hills/Dufton show.

Over the last two years we have been working on our Artsmark award promoting arts across the school community. We are delighted to have been given the GOLD award.

”'You have prioritised the recovery of children’s mental and emotional wellbeing after the fluctuations in education for the past two years due to Covid. Your Artsmark journey was designed to make you more aware of how art and creativity can influence and support mental wellbeing. You provided pop up clubs, themed assemblies, a new range of spaces with easy access to toys and tools to encourage creativity as an outlet. Children are given extra opportunities now to express themselves creatively and are witnessed daily reflecting this back, by painting on the ground with chalks, running or dancing with ribbons and ropes and role play problem solving using fairy folk or dolls houses. You are not an ethnically diverse school, but you have developed the curriculum with more awareness of cultural diversity. In music, PE (dance), RE and art, you covered a wide breadth of artists, designers and influencers. Your Art Coordinator compiled units with planning, resources and links on PowerPoints which non-specialists could follow. These include examples demonstrating skills progression, so staff know appropriate levels of achievement. You suggest that you regularly collect ‘pupil’s voice’ in order to monitor children’s understanding”

The art curriculum is delivered to pupils from Y1-6 as a discrete lesson for an hour a week by our art specialist. The curriculum is devised specifically to work alongside the two year rolling programme, linking to other foundation subjects e.g. history, design technology. It is adapted to meet the needs/interests of groups of children and involve local artists/projects. Some of the Planbee units have been used as a springboard for the units. Assessment is made after discussion with the children, looking at their sketchbooks and portfolios. This is then recorded on the foundation assessment grid.