St Maria Goretti

Art

Intent

At St Maria Goretti Catholic Academy, the Art and Design curriculum is scaffolded around the children’s imagination, expression and individuality. Through the expertise of an artist in residence, the children at St Maria’s are encouraged to tap into their own imaginations and develop their own unique style as artists, thus creating a relaxed environment where all artwork is recognised and promoted.

Encouraging creativity within Art and Design is well recognised for its potential to express hidden emotions, reduce stress, fear and anxiety and promote a sense of comfort for children. Engaging young people in the arts can inspire and motivate, opening up new possibilities for creative expression and imagination. It can stimulate a young person’s ability to question and connect with the world around them, and it can also help young people to develop the resilience to manage challenging life circumstances which is prominent for the children at our school.

With this in mind, we hope for our children to become ambitious, imaginative and motivated in the future, and this will be encouraged through:

Promotion of good Mental Health and Wellbeing – Inclusive of Forest School Exploration
Explicit links to future careers and gain influences from artists, architects, photographers and designers.
Opportunities to work alongside an Artist in Residence (PC).
Developing a unique and individual style within Art: The freedom of choice, exploration and expression.

Implementation

Art and Design is taught within a week-long block within every half term. This allows children to access all resources and fully immerse themselves within a topic. A different stand of Art is focussed upon per half term, whether this be Sketching, Painting, Sculpture, textiles or Print. Within each strand, children are encouraged to learn about at least 2 different artists with their own artistic style and develop skills and techniques that are commonly used by these artists.

Throughout the year, the children at St Maria Goretti learn about 3 various topics within all curriculum subjects. In order to promote creativity and individuality, the children have the opportunity to express their unique style through:

The introduction of personal sketchbooks in KS2 to allow the children to sketch freely as and when they feel necessary.
Explicit links being made to multiple artists within a lesson, allowing the children to view and develop a range of techniques that can be used within art.
Possibilities to choose the artwork that is being created. E.g. allowing the children to decide what they draw/paint/sculpt within a specific Topic.
The promotion of Artwork through a whole school gallery
Liaising with the Forest School team and encouraging those children to be imaginative and creative through Art and Design.
Selecting children as Art Leaders, enabling them to take responsibility for the care of individual class resources.
Utilising the skills and expertise of an artist in residence (PC), ensuring that each class within KS2 is taught and exposed to the artistry and influence.

In order to deliver high quality outcomes for children, a structured lesson approach is taken to ensure that although expression and creativity is encouraged, teacher assessment is also accurate and progression within each lesson is clear and evident. To ensure this, a 4 step approach is delivered within a lesson:

Prior-Learning Assessment: This entails the children recapping, not only the prior learning from the previous lesson, but also the vocabulary used within other strands of Art and using Low-stakes quizzing in order to embed the knowledge of Artists focussed on within previous Topics.
Pre-Skills Assessment: Art books will be split into 3 sections, the first section will be for the Pre-skills assessment. This will focus on a specific skill within a strand of art e.g. brush techniques. The children will have 10 minutes at the start of the lesson to practise the skill focussed upon within a lesson, prior to any teaching.
Teaching of Skills: The main section of the 3 will be used for the majority of the lesson. After being shown how to use and implement Art techniques by the artist in residence, the children will have the opportunity to use these skills themselves by creating a piece of Art work.
Post-Learning Assessment: The final section is to assess the knowledge/ability of the children now that they have been taught specific skills and techniques by the artist in residence. This then shows clear progression throughout each lesson.

Impact

The children at St Maria’s are exposed to fantastic Artists throughout their education, having the amazing opportunity to work with a real-life artist each day and the ability to be inquisitive. Through the use of expression and freedom within Art and Design, children are supported in their learning and even have the ability to display their work within an Art gallery. This highly promotes Art within our school and allows the children to feel that their work is valued and appreciated. As stated, the Artist in residence assists children when developing their skills within art, alongside teachers implementing a structured lesson, as well as focussing on learning about a range of artists and increasing their Artistry knowledge.

The children are regularly exposed to key skills and vocabulary from all year groups through the 4 step approach to learning. They regularly have the ability to share their ideas within a lesson, allowing them to be creative and artistic within our Art and Design curriculum. As well as working collaboratively within year groups, the children also have the fantastic ability to organise their own work within the Art gallery and having the opportunity to observe what is being taught across the school.

Wider Curriculum

Through Art and Design, the children at St Maria Goretti have ample opportunities to be creative across other curricular subjects:

Children will use Art and Design within a Forest School setting
Through the use of personal sketchbooks, they may be creative within other lessons across the curriculum.
Individual responses within RE show the artistic talents of our children.
The children will develop skills for Humanities through Art and Design by learning about the history of particular artists, as well as developing geographical skills such as where Artists themselves, sculptures or buildings are located.
The children will develop physical art skills as well as developing in confidence and positivity through Art, which are desirable skills to take forward within the future.

SMG proudly presents 'Saint Maria Goretti's Art Gallery!'

Pupils celebrated Saint Maria Goretti's Feast day by creating representations of the school's saint during a whole-school art competition.

Outstanding artwork!

Please visit our resident art teacher (Mr Calvert's) website.

St John's Art Gallery and Cafe

Art - Tips for Parent's

Art & Design - Information for Parents

Art in our school

In order to deliver high quality outcomes for children, a structured lesson approach is taken to ensure that although expression and creativity is encouraged, progression within each lesson is clear and evident. To ensure this, a 4 step approach is delivered within a lesson:

Prior-Learning Assessment: This entails the children recapping, not only the prior learning from the previous lesson, but also the vocabulary used within other strands of Art and using Low-stakes quizzing in order to embed the knowledge of Artists focussed on within previous Topics.
Pre-Skills Assessment: Art books will be split into 3 sections, the first section will be for the Pre-skills assessment. This will focus on a specific skill within a strand of art e.g. brush techniques. The children will have 10 minutes at the start of the lesson to practise the skill focussed upon within a lesson, prior to any teaching.
Teaching of Skills: The main section of the 3 will be used for the majority of the lesson. After being shown how to use and implement Art techniques by the artist in residence, the children will have the opportunity to use these skills themselves by creating a piece of Art work.
Post-Learning Assessment: The final section is to assess the knowledge/ability of the children now that they have been taught specific skills and techniques by the artist in residence. This then shows clear progression throughout each lesson.

Cross-Curricular Learning

Across the school, the children use and implement their Art skills within a range of subjects thanks to our Artist in residence! It is evident that the teaching and learning of Art is transferable within all aspects of the curriculum. The Artwork above was created, at home, by Jagoda in Year 4. She has used a range of techniques such as shading, which was taught in an Art lesson, within her Religious Education work. The children across the school have immense pride for their RE books and often share them with guests and visitors. Within RE, the children are able to respond to activities in many ways which often results in fantastic Art pieces being created within the subject.

Career Links

Fortunately, our school has the greatest inspiration for Art leading to a top career! Mr Calvert has used his artistry skills within a range of careers, inspiring the children to the same.

Art can lead to many careers, such as: