Art & Design

Art & Design links with the wider curriculum areas as it lends itself to all of them.

Discrete opportunities to explore Art & Design form part of our curriculum enrichment; for example making lanterns with the Rye Arts/Radiator Arts for the Rye Christmas Procession, taking part each year in the Winchelsea Advent Windows and entering local Art competitions.

Our Art and Design curriculum aims to inspire pupils and develop their confidence to experiment and invent their own works of art. We believe it is important to nurture creativity, encourage risk-taking and the exploration of their own ideas, whilst helping our children to be reflective learners, through the creative curriculum.

At St Thomas’, we follow the Kapow Art and Design scheme of work to ensure our pupils will have opportunities to develop their ability, nurture their talent and interests, express their ideas and thoughts about the world, as well as learn about art and artists across cultures and through history.

By using Kapow as our Art and Design scheme, we are enabling our children to meet the end of key stage attainment targets in the National Curriculum. These can be found in individual unit planning and in our progression documents.

Units are organised around four core areas:

Drawing
Painting and mixed media
Sculpture and 3D
Craft and Design

Fundamental Concepts

There are five key strands that run throughout our curriculum. These are:

Generating ideas
Using sketchbooks
Making skills, including formal elements (line, shape, tone, texture, pattern and colour)
Knowledge of artists
Evaluating and analysing

Kapow’s Art and Design scheme has been designed as a spiral curriculum, which means the key aims and principles of the curriculum are revisited each year. The key principles we will be following with the Kapow scheme are:

Cyclical: Pupils return to the key strands again and again during their time in primary school.
Increasing depth: Each time the key strand is revisited, it is covered with greater complexity.
Prior knowledge: Upon returning to each key strand, prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build upon previous foundations, rather than starting again.

Art in our Community.
We have strong links with our community and participate in local art exhibitions and competitions whilst inviting a range of local artists into school to work with the children.

Our Art & Design Subject Leader is Mrs Dee Rampling.