Intent

The Visual Arts are essential to the development and well-being of all children. Here at George Carey we believe the arts play a vital role at enabling all children to reach their full potential. Our Art, Craft and Design Curriculum has been carefully shaped to enable personal expression, develop cultural understanding, and foster children’s creativity.

Our Art, Craft and Design curriculum will inspire students to:
- Create imaginative, practical works of art, craft, and design 
- Generate ideas and make thoughtful responses which encourage critical and creative thinking
- Learn a broad range of technical artistic skills and processes and develop proficiency in their techniques 
 - Know about great artists, designers, architects, illustrators, craftspeople; both female and male; across a broad range of disciplines, heritage, genres, and cultures
 - Learn about great works of art; both classical and contemporary; local and traditional
 - Reflect upon their own work to support the generation of new ideas and original, creative work 
 - Discover how to use a sketchbook to understand the creative process and learn how to adapt, refine and develop their work 
 - Know how to explore ideas, make careful observations, use technical language and analyse work

 Implementation

Our Art and Design curriculum at George Carey is based upon the National Curriculum 2014 and uses Cornerstones 2022 Curriculum to support. This has been adapted and enhanced to ensure that the curriculum is ambitious and relevant to the pupils in our school. There are 5 units per year for KS1 and 7 units in KS2. Art, Craft and Design Curriculum lessons are taught progressively and links are made to our topics being taught where possible. These are made in order for our children make meaningful connections whilst building their schemata.

Art and Design is taught through a thematic approach in EYFS and the focus is the exploration and experimentation with a wide range of exciting and interesting materials to support children’s imaginative and creative responses. This will be facilitated in the EYFS setting, as well as during specialist lessons which introduce the children to more complex media, with the aim to ignite their curiosity further and support how they interact with creative mediums.   

Within our ARP, Design and Technology is taught thematically based upon the children’s specific needs and targets.

Essential Elements

Our pledge to every child:
•    Learn about the creative process and produce a range of creative, and often inspiring, works of art, craft, and design 
•    Develop proficient art, craft and design techniques in a range of visual art forms including Drawing, Painting, Collage, Printmaking, Sculpture, and Textiles 
•    Reflect, often skilfully and articulately using technical vocabulary, on my learning 
•    Use the formal elements of Art and Design to support my understanding of my own creative practice 
•    Develop critical and creative thinking skills
•    Learn about great artists, designers, and craft makers across a broad range of backgrounds, disciplines and cultures
•    Visit a traditional classical Gallery in KS1 and a modern contemporary Gallery in KS2.
Own my own sketchbooks and use them effectively to support my work

Impact

At George Carey our D&T Curriculum is enjoyable, creative, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. . Children are assessed on their creative approaches as well the final outcomes based upon the National Curriculum Programmes of Study through use of formative assessment.