At Hindley Junior and Infant School, we are committed to providing all children with learning opportunities to engage in Art and Design. As a school, we believe that Art is a vital and integral part of children’s education. Our Art and Design curriculum celebrates diversity, encouraging all children to explore a variety of cultural, historical, and contemporary art forms. At Hindley Junior and Infant School, we aim to help children appreciate the rich variety of art in the world and to understand the influence of different cultural perspectives on artistic expression.
We provide structured opportunities for children to develop key artistic skills, including drawing, painting, sculpture, digital art, and design. These skills are built progressively throughout their time at school, allowing each child to master techniques and develop their personal style,
Art and Design fosters a sense of identity and personal achievement, giving children the confidence to take creative risks. By celebrating each child's unique artistic journey, we help them recognise their own strengths and build self-esteem.
Collaborative art projects encourage teamwork, communication, and the sharing of ideas. By working together on large-scale art projects, children learn to appreciate the value of collective creativity whilst also respecting individual contributions.
We encourage children to reflect on their own work and that of others. Through peer feedback and self-assessment, they learn how to analyse and improve their creative processes, making informed decisions to further their artistic development.
The national curriculum for Art and Design aims to ensure that all children:

• 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.

Reception
Children will safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function. They will share their creations, explaining the process they have used. Children will use a range of small tools, including pencils, scissors and paint brushes. They will be encouraged to show accuracy and care when drawing.
The national curriculum for Art and Design aims to ensure that all children should be taught:
Key Stage 1

• To use a range of materials creatively to design and make products.

• To use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination.
• To develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space.
• About the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to their own work.

Key stage 2

• To develop their techniques, including their control and their use of materials, with creativity, experimentation, and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design.

• To create sketch books to record their observations and use them to review and revisit ideas.
• To improve their mastery of art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpture with a range of materials [for example, pencil, charcoal, paint, clay] about great artists, architects and designers in history.

Implementation

Research suggests that Art and Design is one of primary-aged children’s favourite subjects and we believe it to be a crucial part of school life and learning.  At Hindley Junior and Infant School, we implement Art and Design through the use of well planned, progressive lessons which focus on building the children’s skills, knowledge and understanding of the subject. These skills are built upon as the children go through school with teachers making explicit links to previously learnt skills and knowledge. These lessons are implemented on a weekly basis in a fun, creative and engaging way which provide the children with a wealth of knowledge about an artist. This then provides the children with the opportunity to use the progressive skills they have learnt to create their own piece of artwork, taking inspiration from the artist studied whilst also being ambitious with their own design ideas too. We have carefully chosen artists based on our locality for each year group to take inspiration from, such as L.S.Lowry and Liverpool Cathedral, to ensure that our Art curriculum is personalised and relevant to the children at our school. The artists chosen will also allow the children to explore artwork from different countries and cultures. The evidence of their work is collected within their art sketch book which follows the children through the school. Photographs of larger, group or 3D pieces are also kept within this book.

Children will have clear understanding of skills and artists studied, show enjoyment and have confidence in their abilities in Art and Design. The large majority of children will achieve age related expectations in Art and Design with progress closely monitored through the use of our knowledge and skills progression document. At Hindley Junior and Infant School, children will have a passion for creating pieces of art using their skills learnt, they will be able to express their creativity in many different ways using skills that will be transferable across different areas of the curriculum and their home life too.

To track and measure the impact of Art teaching, we use Insight, our online assessment tool that aligns directly with our curriculum. This allows teachers to instantly monitor how individual classes or year groups are performing against our curriculum targets, helping to identify and address any gaps in learning. In addition to Insight, the subject leader conducts informal learning walks and pupil interviews, alongside reviewing children’s work, to ensure that learning objectives are met and knowledge can be recalled when prompted. These assessments show that pupils are not only engaged and excited about Art but also able to retain and apply what they’ve learned, demonstrating the effectiveness of our curriculum.