19 Art, Design & Technology

Abbey Hulton Primary School

• Art and Design

At Abbey Hulton Primary School you are welcome to come and see how Art and Design is taught in our setting. Our curriculum begins in Early Years exploring colour, brush handling, creating patterns and textures in our artwork. We then progress through each year group and key stage developing our artistic ability and mastering our craft in textile, sculpture, drawing or painting. Our children have access to a variety of materials and equipment. We are happy to share and try to integrate artwork into many aspects of the curriculum and displays around school. Should you feel uncertain about teaching any techniques related to Art and Design, we have a fantastic ‘Teacher’s Tool Book’ you can access from our school website or via our subject leader which provides video tutorials on techniques to be used in class, a list of equipment needed and handy teaching tips with vocabulary links.

• Design and Technology

Take a look on our school website at our ‘Teacher Tool Book’ for Design and Technology. This publication details everything you need to know when teaching Design and Technology in your setting, from mechanical systems to cooking techniques. Inside, you will find handy website links to support your teaching of Design and Technology alongside curriculum progression and supporting documents when planning cooking sessions with your class.

At Abbey Hulton Primary School, Design and Technology takes place across all year groups and subjects. We have recently started to build a bank of STEM activities that can be used in classrooms for early finishers to unleash their inner engineer or designer and encourage critical thinking and decision-making.

Art, Design and Technology

Forest Park Primary School

Art teaching at Forest Park ensures all children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum. We ensure that our community is considered within the art curriculum by teaching children about a range of artists, styles and develop children’s lifelong artistic skills. With access to a wide range of resources in school and locally, we provide children with exciting opportunities both inside and outside of school. Our children can be as creative as they wish! Art allows children to explore and encourages visual thinking and can make them better observers of detail in the world around them. In the context of our school, art allows our children to explore things they may not otherwise be exposed to thus broadening their minds and ways of thinking.

A child’s artwork has worth in its own right, it is not measured or judged by others as right or wrong. Art gives a child autonomy over their own work and the authority to say what they have created, what it communicates and ultimately builds up their confidence and self-esteem. At Forest Park, all children are artists.

At Forest Park, design and technology (D&T) is taught every other half term, opposite art. The aim of the D&T curriculum is to ensure that all children have wide experiences that are built upon across the year groups and have a good understanding of how to plan, design, make and evaluate a product. Each of these areas has an equal importance when teaching D&T and therefore, across each year, each project will be taught with a focus on one specific area. Each year group completes three projects across the academic year. These have been created around the national curriculum requirements for each year group.

Children are given the opportunity to present their work in their own style within their creative books. They select the work they would like to include in their presentation. Children are keen to show off what they have learned and produced within each project, in their own unique style.

Oakhill Primary School

The art and design technology curriculums at Oakhill are bespoke, progressive and ensure coverage of all National Curriculum objectives, designed to meet the needs of our pupils. All unit plans display prior knowledge, next knowledge and key knowledge to be learnt over the course of the unit.

Most lessons have a revisit/review element to ensure that knowledge and understanding is recalled frequently, helping children to build schema. In DT from Year 1, pupils are taught woodwork, textiles, mechanisms and cookery, where knowledge and understanding of food and diet is also taught. Where possible, these units do link to other areas of the curriculum. In art, pupils cover six units per year, each focusing on an artist. During these units, pupils will cover printing, painting, textiles, 3D, sculpture and drawing.

Watermill School

Watermill School has an Art, Design & Technology classroom and a specialist Art & Design teacher. The room has a range of specialist D&T resources and tools, alongside two potter’s wheels and a kiln. The room can take a maximum of 12 children. We cover all aspects of art and design, however, the main strengths of our subject specialist are around ceramics and printmaking.

The Art & Design curriculum focuses on drawing and painting, printmaking, ceramics, textiles and sculpture. Drawing is a golden thread that runs throughout each unit of work; through sketching and designing across the art disciplines. Looking at the work of artists, crafts-people and art from different cultures in an integral part of our curriculum offer and often sets the context for each unit of work across all learning pathways. Within the ceramics discipline we teach a range of hand-building, throwing and glazing skills and processes. Within the area of printmaking we teach a range of skills and techniques including collagraph, monotype, poly-tile, lino-cut and silk-screen printing processes.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss curriculum development and assessment, art workshops for pupils or for staff CPD or to access the facilities including the Art & DT room or the kiln.