Art and Design

At St Giles' Catholic Primary School we want every child to be happy and enthusiastic learners of Art & Design, and to be eager to achieve their very best in order to fulfil their God-given talents. We firmly believe that the recipe for success is high quality first-wave teaching in Art & Design, which is central to the life of our happy, caring school.

We have been working hard to develop our arts provision at St. Giles' over the last five years. Our first aim was to design an exciting and engaging curriculum and then we set our sights on achieving the Artsmark award.

The Artsmark Award is the only creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. It supports schools to develop and celebrate arts and cultural education, putting creativity and wellbeing at the heart of the curriculum. Artsmark ensures every young person can be creative and access a diverse, high-quality cultural education.

In 2019 we set our sights on raising the profile of the arts at St. Giles’ and began our Artsmark Journey. Artsmark is the creative quality standard for schools and education settings, awarded by Arts Council England. The Artsmark award provides a clear framework for teachers and education professionals to plan, develop and evaluate their arts and cultural provision.

We created a statement of commitment, outlining our aims and how we were going to achieve them. With the support of our school community, we have been able to develop an exciting arts curriculum offer and have provided equal opportunities for all children to experience the arts at St. Giles’. We submitted a statement of impact in the summer term of 2023 which explained our achievements with supporting evidence of our progress. We have worked hard to achieve our goals and we are very proud of the progress that we have made.

Our Curriculum

Our curriculum is divided into a sequence of learning that enables all children to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding.

Step 1 – Research

This is where children look at a range of artists, craftspeople and designers. They begin to gather knowledge about the artist, carry out some observational drawings and collect samples of fabric, magazine cut-outs and key vocabulary that inspire them.

Step 2 – Experimentation

We begin to experiment with a range of processes and techniques. This is a fundamental part of learning in art and design, it is where our children begin to develop their craft.

Step 3 – Design

Our children should by this point have a wealth of information linked to their overarching topic or vehicle link. It is now time to look back at what they have learnt and collected to decide what they want to include in their final piece.

Children will consider:

What is their composition going to look like?
What colours are they going to use?
What materials are they going to use and how are they going to use them?
How are they going to apply what they have learnt into one final piece of art?

Children will then begin to draft/sketch out their idea for a final piece, annotating with thoughts and ideas.

Step 4 – Making

It’s time to get making their final piece! The sketchbook is very important for this stage of learning as their planning contains the tools they need to create their vision. Our children are now able to create their vision on a larger scale.

Step 5 - Evaluation

Evaluation is an integral part of each stage as children are constantly evaluating their work. Every time they make a mark or manipulate the materials they are using, they are evaluating the effectiveness of what they have done and how it matches their intention.

For their evaluation, a picture of their final piece is stuck in their books and children write their evaluations around it. They consider what went well, what they are pleased with and what skills they hope to improve in the future.