Art & Design

• Appreciate art from different areas of the world
• Appreciate art from different periods in history
• Express their own style based on a secure knowledge of the elements of art
• Be able to talk about different artists with confidence

Importance to Bearwood Primary and Nursery pupils:

The teaching of Art and Design, involves teaching skills and concepts in an inclusive, inspiring, engaging and relevant way. The process of making art is just as relevant as a finished piece of artwork. This allows scope for further opportunities for development and for children to reflect and develop methods of revisiting works, or using art pieces as a point of reference.

Children see before they speak, make marks before they write, build before they walk but the children’s ability to appreciate and interpret these things is influenced by the quality of their art, craft and design education.  Artists are chosen to reflect our diverse population ensuring that our curriculum is both inclusive and inspiring.

Throughout their time at Bearwood, children will draw, paint, print and sculpt using inspiration from the local area, with its fantastic landscapes for many pieces.  This will vary from charcoal beach side drawings in Year 2 to sea creature sculptures in Year 3 to landscape drawings in Year 6.

The art curriculum aims to ignite children’s love for expression, preparing them with essential knowledge throughout their time at Bearwood. This begins in the EYFS where the foundation is laid through the knowledge and vocabulary where children develop a sense of mark making and colour theory, which enables them to access art content in KS1.

The art units have been carefully chosen to cover as wide-ranging content as possible without compromising depth, breadth and coherence. The curriculum content increases in range, depth and complexity as pupils move through the school. From drawing using pencil, charcoal and chalk; a deep understanding of colour theory during painting units, to experimenting with printing and sculpting techniques.   Bearwood has a dedicated and fully stocked Practical Room.  Children begin sketchbooks in Year 1 and continue these throughout the school. Sketchbooks are not marked and children are taught to experiment and express themselves in their own way within their sketchbooks to give them a true sense of ownership.

The art curriculum has been designed to be both knowledge-rich and coherently sequenced with repeated encounters in different contexts. Knowledge means not only substantive knowledge of the elements of art within drawing, painting, printing and sculpture, but also knowledge of disciplinary concepts in art such as techniques, movements, variety around the world and an appreciation and evaluation of the works of a diverse pool of artists.