Art at Hornsea Community Primary School

Intent

Here at HCPS we believe in delivering the best quality Art lessons that will both inspire children towards careers within the creative industries and build on their existing skills in painting, drawing, sculpture and digital Art. Our Art curriculum will allow our children to shine and will highlight children who have a particular gift or talent in this subject.

They will be able to learn using a variety of mediums and will be introduced to a broad variety of artists and designers from history and current influential artists, some of which will have had a successful career in their chosen profession. This is in line with our inspirational people curriculum and aims to empower the children by developing their cultural capital.  

The skills that they acquire will be applied to cross curricular topics which allows them to reflect upon and explore topics at a greater depth, for example by using their skills to sketch historical artefacts, or research geographical locations and use landscaping skills with watercolours to enrich their learning.

It is paramount that artwork be purposeful, and this could be as a means of expression or mindfulness or as a way to explore other artist’s styles and begin to develop their own unique styles. Pupils should be clear as to the intended outcomes for the artwork is and have a means to measure their own work against this.

As with all subjects, children should be encouraged to reflect upon their work and to make changes and keep improving in a supportive environment.

Implementation

Lessons are planned in line with National Curriculum objectives, but skills have been broken down further in drawing painting, sculpture and digital media, so that both teachers and children can benefit from clear progression within each broad skill.

Teachers are regularly exposed to professional development through staff meetings and external Art courses and the Art leader subscribes to a professional body to keep abridge of the latest in primary Art education. 

Work is displayed throughout school to celebrate success both in class rooms and within a high profile public school gallery where all children are exposed to work. Where possible, links are made with the community to display work in public arenas.

The children enter local and national competitions, including the Feren’s Open Art exhibition and The Hornsea Art Society Cherry trophy.  

A variety of Art and creativity clubs are offered in extra-curricular time to promote learning and wellbeing for children, such as Craft Club, Sketching Club and Doodle Club.

We aim to use our culturally rich local environment and local artists to visit us at school and we visit galleries and exhibitions too, including the Bridlington Artwaves Festival. Our school ‘Gophers’ include several art experiences which we want to ensure children experience before the time they leave primary school, such as making some wild art, visiting an art gallery, painting with your feet and to do some beach art.

Impact

Our Art Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes; a celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school; pupil discussions about their learning which includes discussion of their thoughts, ideas, processing and evaluations of work.