Art : Dereham Church Of England Infant and Nursery Academy

Art Intent Statement

At Dereham Church Of England Infant and Nursery Academy, we strive for our children to receive an ambitious art curriculum where they are consistently developing and applying new skills. We strive for our art curriculum to be inclusive to all, meeting the needs of each individual through self-expression and promoting the ethos that every child is an artist. Within our art curriculum, we want our children to have the freedom to explore and investigate our six main areas- drawing, colour, texture, form, pattern and printing. Each piece is crafted with time and care to reflect a true showcase of the disciplined process of each child’s experimentation and techniques that have been taught and developed across their time at our school.

Children are taught age appropriate ways to express their thoughts and feelings to a piece of art work, including their own, their peers and featured artists, evaluating and analysing using the language of art, craft and design.

Art Implementation

At Dereham Church Of England Infant and Nursery Academy we ensure that children are given the best provision in art possible by using the EYFS Development Matters and KS1 National Curriculum document at the heart of our ever changing and developing curriculum.

Art is taught each half term for a minimum of three weeks, the coverage that our art curriculum offers is based on cross-curricular links that will be touched upon for other subjects. For example; in Autumn 1, Year 1 the children are introduced to the artist Acrimboldo to support learning in food and nutrition on fruits and vegetables, as well as Science learning of plants and Geography learning of Human and Physical Features. It is also placed alongside the art skill of form, where the children experiment with hands on art, using real fruits and vegetables to create their pieces to develop their fine motor skills. We feel this is the best approach to embed vocabulary and learning alongside deliverance being relevant and within context.

Our six key skills are taught through Reception – Year 2 allowing the children to embed, develop and apply concepts, techniques and vocabulary throughout their time at our school. This is also achieved through adult modelling, classroom displays and showcasing of art work in our local community.

Art Impact

By the time our children leave our school we aim for them to have embedded a wide skill set which they can apply to different mediums and artistic approaches; the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design.

They will have an awareness of a variety of artists and be able to share their thoughts and opinions using relevant vocabulary. Our children will have a creative mindset where they try their best and take risks to experiment without the worry of failure and apply this to all areas of their life.