Art and Design is one of the subjects forming 'The Arts' at Deanesfield. We define the Arts as creative and imaginative activity through drama, dance, music and visual art. The Arts are an essential part of the Deanesfield school day. Through the arts, we give children a range of experiences to captivate and motivate them, allowing them to creatively explore new ideas. Children with a range of abilities and needs have the opportunity to creatively express their ideas and emotions, and in turn progress both personally and academically.

We believe that capturing the passion for the Arts is important and therefore we aim to provide all children with high quality arts provision and experiences in and out of school. Our planning and experiences are led by the interests of the children, celebrating their cultural backgrounds, giving them ownership over their learning experiences in the Arts.

“Art and design is not just a subject to learn, but an activity that you can practise: with your hands, your eyes, your whole personality." Quentin Blake, Illustrator and Children's Laureate.

At Deanesfield Primary School, we believe that art plays an integral role in the development of our children and is a key element of the broad and balanced curriculumn we offer. Children with a range of abilities have the opportunity to creatively express their ideas and emotions and in turn progress both personally and academically.

Our school motto is, “Dream, believe, achieve, and make a difference.” This is translated into three steps we incorporate into all our art-related teaching: Inspire; Encourage; Succeed.

To inspire children, we expose them to a wide range of artists, media and creative opportunities. This helps children to develop their creativity and ideas as well as identify new techniques, media and skills.

We encourage the children by holding the arts in as high regard as other subjects taught in the curriculum. This is evidenced by a clear and progressive skills-based curriculum which has carefully been devised to build upon the children’s previous learning. Children are encouraged to take risks and experiment and then reflect on why some ideas and techniques are successful or not for a particular project.

The skills in which each year group focus on are divided in 3 key areas:

• tone,
• form, line and shape
• colour

We enable the children experience success by providing them with the opportunitiy to showcase their creativity and skills learnt through producing their own final piece.

The skills they acquire are applied to their cross-curricular topics, allowing children to use their art skills to reflect on and explore topics in greater depth; for example, by sketching historical artefacts in detail, researching geographical locations to support their work on landscape painting or using art as a medium to express emotion and thought to enhance their personal, social and emotional development.

Alongside children’s art lessons we also provide pupils with a wide range of extra-curricular clubs as well as plan visits to art galleries and local art organisations. At Deanesfield, the children take part in an annual Arts Week focusing on a different theme each year. During the week the pupils delve into the given topic, related artists, learn new skills and complete experimental work culminating in a final individual art piece which is then exhibited at our Sunset Festival for parents, family and our school community to view. This provides the children with a sense of achievement and allows them to celebrate their success.   

All pupils have had the opportunity to take part in a number of different bespoke whole-school art projects including creating huge mosaics and murals in our outdoor areas, working alongside professional artists, commemorating Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee by producing a stone art installation and creating class canvases.    

Pupils in years 1 and 6 work with a professional artist in residence to achieve their Arts Award Discover and their Arts Award Explore. This provides pupils with a valuable opportunity to gain knowledge, skills and take inspiration from a professional working artist. Arts Award is a personal learning framework that accredits students’ individual development in the arts. Through Arts Award, young people gain a nationally recognised qualification. They not only gain art form knowledge and understanding but also develop leadership, creativity and communication skills.

By the end of their time with us, we want pupils to have learned, improved and embedded a range of artistic skills. They should have an awareness of a broad range of artists and craftspeople, and be able to consider and discuss the artworks they come across. We want our pupils to be confident to explore, experiment and take risks, placing value on the process and journey that they take, not just on the finished product. Most importantly, we want children to have found and enjoyed a creative outlet – a means of self-expression and enjoyment.

We aim to give children a wide variety of high quality art experiences, using a variety of media for drawing, painting, printing, collage and sculpture that engage and challenge our pupils. Our scheme of work, developed from the national curriculum, often takes inspiration from national and international stimuli such as The National Gallery's 'Take One Picture' initiative, which includes aspects of appreciation, art history and experimentation. Artists and styles and cultures from around the world are studied. Our art lessons are incorporated across the curriculum, making learning fun and accessible for all pupils.