Art

At CCSJ, we encourage children’s artistic development from Nursery to Year 6. We are lucky enough to have a full-time specialist Art teacher leading the curriculum, working with a passion for nurturing artistic confidence and originality.

Our Art curriculum (which encompasses the objectives outlined in the national curriculum) is taught through four strands:

1. drawing and painting
2. 3D Art – this includes sculpture and textiles
3. printmaking
4. lens-based media, which we teach alongside our Computing curriculum (editing and manipulating media)

The curriculum also builds progression in the following visual elements of Art:

• colour
• tone
• line and shape
• form and space
• texture and pattern

Each term of learning begins in the same way, with children studying an artist’s work in detail. The artist will be chosen because their work is a strong example of a particular skill across the strands and areas.

Following an appreciation of the artist/designer’s work linked to their main topic for that term, themed. Pupils will have the chance to imitate part of the artwork or skill demonstrated in the artwork. Once pupils have developed the confidence and skills to imitate what they have observed and understood, they innovate their works by using and applying the new knowledge and skills taught with freedom.

Pupils are also encouraged to evaluate their artworks and those of others, describing how they made their work, indicating parts which have been particularly successful and suggesting ways in which their work might be modified or improved.

Work is often displayed across the school and in a school gallery in March aligned to the Oxfordshire Art Weeks programme