Highcliffe St Mark Primary School 

Art, Craft and Design Vision Statement 

At Highcliffe St Mark Primary School, we aim to promote children’s creativity and allow them to express themselves in their own individual ways. Our Art curriculum allows our children to experience the wonderful world around us, it engages their senses and encourages them to look at things with a unique perspective. Developing children’s creativity enhances their learning experiences not only in art but in all subjects across the curriculum. Children will experience a broad and balanced story of art and will reflect on how it has shaped our cultural history, and how it contributes to the creative wealth of our world. They will be exposed to a diverse range of artists and craftspeople from around the globe and throughout history.

As a school we follow an Art & Design curriculum designed by Kapow Primary. Kapow offers us engaging and knowledge-rich lessons that are accessible to all. We carefully adapt these lessons to suit the needs of our pupils and make sure to add our own unique Highcliffe flair!

Our Art & Design curriculum is broken down into four core stands; drawing, painting & mixed media, sculpture & 3D and craft & design. These stands are repeated in each year group to ensure that complex skills are built upon over time to achieve control and proficiency. We have designed a clear and careful progression of knowledge and skills that we want our pupils to develop during their primary school experience. These knowledge and skills are developed through a variety of learning experiences including: creating/ making, exploration of formal elements (colour, form, line, pattern, shape, texture and tone), knowledge of artists and critiquing work.

We encourage our children to reflect on their own story through art and therefore promote the use of sketchbooks, which follow the children through the school from Foundation to Year 6. Sketchbooks allow the children to share their experiments, illustrate their ideas and to master the use of different media and tools.

Overall, our main aim through our Art & Design curriculum is to inspire our pupils, expose them to the beauty and diversity of art and challenge them to invent their own wonderful artwork that in turn inspires others.