QUEEN’S CRESCENT SCHOOL
ART POLICY
Rationale
Art is a vehicle for expressing ideas, solving problems and posing intellectual demands upon children. Children have the ability to learn and form an understanding through observation and acting upon their observations. They learn to become excited by the world, seeing it and understanding it in a unique way through art, design and craft activities.
The main concerns in art education must be to encourage the natural abilities that every pupil possesses.
Aims
- To develop imagination, original thought and experimentation.
- To develop means of communicating ideas and feelings and opinions
- To develop competency through the exploration of a wide range of art media and techniques (including but not limited to; painting, collage, sculpture, sketching, printing, textiles and digital media).
- To develop a critical eye responding to their own and the work of other artists.
- To be able to value and respond to the work of themselves, their peers, artists, crafts people and designers throughout history and from around the world.
- To develop design capability.
- To develop ways of expressing through visual and tactile means, personal responses to the natural and man made world and to different cultures and times.
- To develop the care, use, selection and organisation of appropriate equipment.
Techniques and Learning
The Chris Quigley ‘Essentials’ Curriculum is used as a guide to help deliver the new National Curriculum for Art and Design. Teaching styles will be appropriate to specific tasks. The range of styles will include whole-class introductions and conclusions, demonstrations and evaluations, together with teaching inputs to small groups and with individual children. Teachers will ensure that children understand the purpose of each task and the ways in which these contribute to the overall aim. There will be a teaching emphasis on the development and acquisition of an appropriate art vocabulary, language and skills.
Children will be encouraged to explore and experiment with materials and techniques in order to develop their own ideas, involving first-hand experience wherever possible. Teachers will offer guidance and support, and will encourage children to discuss their work and to share their experiences and discoveries with the whole class. Increasingly, children will be involved in the self-evaluation of their work and will be encouraged to comment constructively on their own and other’s work in the same way that they look at and comment on the work of artists. Teachers will provide a model of good practice through the discussion of successful outcomes.
Art and Design needs to be taught as an integral part of topic work as well as a discreet subject with an emphasis on specific skills and processes through whole class, group and individual approaches in two and three dimensions and on different scales.
Resources
Each unit will maintain a full stock of basic art materials and a central store of specialist equipment will be managed by the subject co-ordinator. Children will be encouraged to take responsibility for the care and maintenance of all materials and equipment.
Assessment
The school’s assessment policy gives a detailed account of how assessment is carried out in the school. Assessments are carried out through teacher set tasks, focused observations, questioning of the children and review of the children’s work. Staff inform parents at parents’ evenings and through the annual reports.
Curriculum links
This policy is supported by an over arching Arts Policy and a range of whole school policies on learning, assessment and special needs. These are used to guide and support the work described in this policy.
Equal opportunities
All children will have an equal opportunity to work within this policy area. Account will be taken of their needs and where appropriate support for them will be accessed through the special needs policy.
Roles and responsibilities
This policy has been developed through consultation between staff and between the co-ordinator, head teacher and governing body. The head teacher, deputy and subject co-ordinator monitor and evaluate the work achieved by the children in this area. The co-ordinator identifies areas for development, resource needs and helps in the moderation of standards across the school. The co-ordinator works with the linked subject governor so that they are aware of such issues. The co-ordinator also liases with the link governor about their visits to school. The linked governor will also keep the governing body informed about developments in this area.
Monitoring and evaluation
The monitoring and evaluation of the achievements made in this area of the curriculum is carried out through the guidelines on monitoring and evaluation. These set out how the head teacher and deputy head use a range of strategies to assess the quality of achievements. The class teachers have a key role in monitoring and evaluation of their work and that of the children in their class. The Headteacher works with the governing body to inform them about the work carried out within the school. The periodic reports either through the Wiltshire School Improvement programme or OFSTED inspections give independent and outside views on the standards achieved within the subject area.
To support monitoring and evaluation, the co-ordinator meets with groups of children from each of the year groups regularly, in order to discuss the progression of their work.
Through the pupil interviews, the co-ordinator gains good insight into standards of learning and makes recommendations for further improvements. This influences the decisions made in the subject action plan and are discussed with the deputy head.
