Aims and purpose of study

Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.

The aims of art and design are:

• produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
• become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
• evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
• know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms

Teaching and learning style

The school uses a variety of teaching and learning styles in art and design lessons. Our principal aim is to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in art and design. We ensure that the act of investigating and making something includes exploring and developing ideas, and evaluating and developing work. We do this best through a mixture of whole-class teaching and individual/group activities. Teachers draw attention to good examples of individual work as models for the other children. They encourage children to evaluate their own ideas and methods, and the work of others, and say what they think and feel about them. We give children the opportunity within lessons to work on their own or to collaborate with others, on projects in two and three dimensions and on different scales. Children also have the opportunity to use a wide range of materials and resources, including IT.

We recognise the fact that we have children of differing ability in each class, and so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We aim to provide challenges through a range of strategies:

• setting common tasks that are open-ended and can have a variety of responses;
• setting tasks of increasing difficulty where not all children complete all tasks (particularly in the Foundation Stage);
• providing a range of challenges with different resources;using additional adults to support the work of individual children or small