Intent
At Senacre Wood Primary school, we are committed to providing a high quality art education which will engage, inspire and challenge our pupils. We strive to equip all of our pupils with the knowledge and skills to participate in, experiment with, invent and create a range of art, craft and design. Numerous studies confirm that pupils’ build life skills through creativity – helping them become more inquisitive, persistent, imaginative, disciplined and collaborative (Arts Council England). We recognise that the arts are all around us and that these are important life skills to develop.
Using the national curriculum for Art and Design, and through the use of high quality teaching and through exploring a range of artists from different cultures and backgrounds, we aim to ensure that all pupils:
- Have a positive attitude towards art, where they feel able to explore and take risks and where they have ownership of their own sketchbooks.
- Make progress in all areas of art including drawing, painting and collage, printmaking, 3D/Sculpture, digital art, architecture, animation, design and making.
- Can make connections between the works of different artists, designers and craft makers and can share their opinions of artwork.
- Feel confident to stretch themselves and take risks in their learning
The core of what we believe is that every child should look forward to and enjoy their art lessons, focussing not just on the outcome of their work but also on the process. They should have access to a high quality curriculum, taught by a specialist art teacher in a well-resourced art studio, and supported by visits from local artists. We believe that art can have a positive impact on mental health and that all children can access it, regardless of any Special Education Needs.
For details of how we implement this within our school and how we measure the impact, please read our Art policy.
Policies
On 2020, we were featured in a Times Educational Supplement article titled, "How a focus on the Arts can Boost Resilience and Character". This is a global publication for those with an interest in education. We spoke about our 'emphasis on the process, rather than the finished work' and pupils' enjoyment of the subject.
"Senacre Woods Primary is an utterly creative school. Our artists always enjoy working in their school – a welcoming place that offers pupils (and teachers) an inspiring environment for children to explore and develop their creative skills. With an impressive art room, an openness to art opportunities, a creative staff team and a school full of young artists, this is a school that champions the importance of creativity." Jo Dyer, Artistic Director, Animate Arts Company
Year 1 Term 1
This term had a very exciting start as we are now having our art lessons in the art studio! We started off by doing lots of experimental work. We used wax crayon, candles and water colour paints to try out wax resist and we also explored mixing the water colour paints to make new colours just like we did with the poster paints last year. Some of us made repeating patterns in our work.
We also looked at printing. We dipped Duplo bricks into primary colours and mixed the colours together to make secondary colours. We printed these onto coloured paper to make brick paper.
We looked at the painting Burg and Sun by Paul Klee. We talked about what the painting reminded us of and what shapes we could see in the painting. We used our brick paper, drew around 2D shapes and cut the shapes out. Then we worked as a team to position them on the page to turn them into buildings.
Miss Munday took photos of us pretending to be superheroes. We had to get ourselves into a position so that we’d look the part. We cut the photos out and then everyone positioned their photo onto our artwork to create a superhero scene. We evaluated our work by drawing or sticking an emoji onto a photo to show what we thought of our work.
Finally, we developed our modelling skills using clay. We learnt how to make pinch pots and looked at mark making using the different tools. We talked about the verbs we could use to describe the different ways that we could manipulate the clay.
Year 3 Term 1
We started off our unit of work by reading the first story in Vincent’s Starry Night and other stories. We discussed what it would be like to draw on cave walls and what the surface would feel like. We scrunched up paper into tight balls and then flattered it out and we had an experimental lesson, drawing underneath the tables, on the walls and on the path outside. We talked about the difficulties of what the cave people would have experienced. We also talked about what Stone Age people would have used to make their clothes and why.
Mrs Clarkson showed us a photo of a sculpture. We had to be art detectives to see what we thought it was and what is was used for. After that we looked at photos and videos about it. We learnt that it was an ancient carved sculpture believed to be around 40,000 years old. We had a go at making a page in our sketchbook all about him. After that we used clay to make our own lion man sculpture. We talked about what would have happened if the original lion man had been made out of clay instead of a mammoth’s tusk.
We spent a lesson experimenting with different paints and tried to make as many different hues of brown using the primary colours. We learnt that adding white makes a tint and adding black makes a shade. We then used tea stained paper and did some anatomical drawings of woolly mammoths on it. We tried to copy the drawings accurately, looking carefully at the scale and proportion.
Finally, we used all of the skills we’d learnt this term to produce our own piece of cave art. We talked about what we enjoyed about the process and what we like about the end result. We discussed the problems that came up and how we solved them and what we might like to try next time
Year 4 Term 1
This term we have been studying the work of Ukranian artist, Olka Kostenko. She is a graphic designer that turns her work into clothes, colouring books and doodle illustrations. She draws most of her work on paper and then scans them into the computer. First of all we did some research on the artist. We created a page in our sketchbooks all about her work.
We then got to choose our own topics based on what we were learning in class. We had the choice of different types of animals. We had a selection of pictures around our topic and we had to cut the pictures out and play around with compositions to decide what looked best.
Once we had designed our work we learnt how to do the lettering. We then drew the main pictures around the edge. Finally we added doodles into all the gaps to complete the work. We talked about the strengths of our work and why the artwork was effective. We also talked about how these ideas could be used to do artwork for any other subject and what we would change if we were to do another one in a similar style.
We turned our doodle art into colouring books and are planning on selling these at the Christmas fair.
Year 5 Term 1
This term we have been developing our understanding of sculpture. We looked at the wind sculptures made by Yinka Shonibare and watched a video about them. He is a British-Nigerian, disabled artist. We compared his work to the work of Joan Miro and discussed how they are similar or different and which art we liked best and why.
We experimented by making simple collages inspired by some of the elements in Miro’s paintings and Shonibare’s sculptures. We teared and cut forms and experimented with colour, shape and composition. We talked about how collage can sometimes make you feel “freer” than drawings as you can’t really get them “wrong”. We then did automatic drawings over the top of the collages. We felt a bit strange doing this as we are used to having an image in our heads and then trying to reproduce this. We had mixed feelings on whether or not we enjoyed this activity!
After that we cut organic shapes out of our card and experimented with joining them together using small pieces of wire. We learnt how to use wire cutters and how to twist the wire to get the pieces to hold together. We also learnt about how to make the sculptures balance and talked about how some of them could be displayed in several different ways.
Finally, we talked about the best ways to display and photograph our sculptures (and did so!) and then we evaluated them.
Year 6 Term 1
This term we have been learning about and producing our own digital art. We started off the topic by discussing what we already knew about digital art and by making a mind map about it. We looked at the work of digital artist David Hurtado and learnt about his digital map illustrations.
After that we started learning how to use the Sketchbook app. We learnt how to select and use different pens, brushes and tools and how to change the colour using the colour wheel. We also learnt how to select colours that we’d already used. Mrs Clarkson modelled how layers can be used in art to make adjusting work much easier and we had a go at drawing some flowers in a vase and then moving the flowers around and making changes to them.
Then we looked at Google Earth and had a go at drawing an aerial view of both our school and Mote Park. We got to decide what we wanted to use to draw with and talked about how our drawings could be made to look like maps.
Finally we created an illustrated map of our local park. We used Google maps and took a screenshot of Mote Park. We then drew the lake and the grassy area on a separate layer, changing the opacity so we could use the map as a guideline. We added the roads around the edge, some footpaths and then added on all the main tourist attractions such as the miniature railway, boating lake, pavilion etc by drawing a picture on different layers, reducing them in size and putting them in the correct place.
At the end of the project we discussed all the new skills that we had learnt and talked about how we could apply them to different projects.
Rob turner
December 2022
Year 4 and 6 worked with local artist, Rob Turner to create a map symbolising community collaboration, pride and local heritage. It was made in conjunction with Otham's residents on behalf of Bellway's Parsonage Place development. It weaves together history, local knowledge, and a shared sense of belonging, creating an authentic portrayal of the area. We are absolutely delighted with how it turned out and are looking forward to creating more work with Rob over the next few months.
September 2023
Year 4 had a fantastic afternoon taking part in an art workshop this week. Local artist and mapmaker, Rob Turner, is involved with a project to develop artwork for housing estates in the local area. Year 4 were given the task of producing their own pictures to symbolise different religious statements from the Bible. The children thoroughly enjoyed displaying their own interpretations of the statements and Rob was pleased with how thoughtful and interesting their ideas were.
Some of these pictures will be engraved on paving stones along Church Street – keep a look out in the future to see if you can find them!
