Art and Design

Art and Design at Weston

At Weston Village Primary School, Art and Design gives children opportunities to observe, explore, experiment, create and respond.

We want pupils to develop the knowledge and practical skills to make increasingly thoughtful artistic choices, while also building confidence in expressing ideas in their own way.

Children learn about artists, artworks, techniques and traditions, but they also learn that art involves experimentation, reflection and revision. The creative process matters as much as the finished piece.

What Children Learn

Our Art and Design curriculum develops knowledge and skills across a broad range of media and processes, including:

• drawing

• painting

• sculpture

• printmaking

• collage

• mixed media

• photography and digital art.

Children revisit these areas across different year groups so that techniques are not encountered once and forgotten.

For example, younger children explore basic colour mixing, mark-making, printing and clay, while older pupils combine several media and make increasingly deliberate choices about composition, tone, texture, perspective and visual effect.

Drawing

Drawing is a core part of the Art curriculum.

Children learn to observe carefully and use line, shape, tone, texture and mark-making with increasing control.

Over time, they move from exploratory drawing towards more deliberate observational and compositional work.

This includes opportunities to use different drawing materials and approaches, such as pencil, charcoal, pastel and pen.

By Year 3, for example, pupils explore tonal drawing, perspective and different kinds of mark-making to represent light, shadow, movement and place.

Painting and Colour

Children build an increasingly secure understanding of colour and painting techniques.

In Key Stage 1, pupils learn about primary and secondary colours, colour mixing, colour matching and complementary colour.

As they progress, they explore a wider range of paints and techniques and make more deliberate choices about colour, tone, layering and composition.

For example, Year 4 pupils learn watercolour techniques including washes, lifting out colour, wet-on-wet painting and creating reflections and tonal effects.

Sculpture and Form

Children develop their understanding of three-dimensional art through practical work with materials such as clay and other construction media.

They learn to shape, join, model, build form and create texture.

The demands increase as pupils move through school. Early work includes rolling and joining clay and exploring form, while later projects ask pupils to combine technical skill with more developed ideas and compositions.

Printmaking, Collage and Mixed Media

Children learn that artworks can be built through layering, repetition, texture and the combination of different materials.

They experience different forms of printmaking, from printing with objects and block printing to more developed approaches such as monoprinting.

They also explore collage and mixed media, combining drawn, painted, printed and constructed elements where this supports the artistic idea.

For example, Year 1 pupils create repeated printed patterns and block prints, while Year 3 pupils move into two-colour monoprints and photomontage.

Photography and Digital Art

As children progress through school, they also encounter photography and digital processes.

These are treated as artistic media in their own right and can also be combined with drawing, painting, printmaking and collage.

The curriculum includes opportunities to explore how photography and digital techniques can change the way artists represent movement, identity, place and composition.

Artists, Artworks and Visual Culture

Children encounter a range of artists, artworks and artistic traditions.

They are taught to look carefully, notice choices an artist has made and discuss how materials, techniques and composition contribute to meaning or effect.

Artists are used to inform and broaden children's thinking, rather than simply as templates to copy.

Children learn that art can reflect identity, place, culture, history, imagination and the natural world, and they use these encounters to inform their own creative decisions.

The Creative Process

Art at Weston is not about producing identical outcomes.

Children are encouraged to:

• explore materials

• practise techniques

• make choices

• take creative risks

• evaluate what is working

• refine or change ideas

• develop an individual response.

We want pupils to understand that artists often experiment, revisit and improve work rather than producing a finished piece immediately.

Art and Design in Reception

The foundations of Art and Design begin in Reception through Expressive Arts and Design.

Children explore colour, line, shape, texture, pattern and form through open-ended creative experiences.

They use a range of tools and materials, develop fine-motor control and begin to make choices about how they represent ideas and experiences.

Adults model techniques and vocabulary while allowing children space to explore, combine materials and develop their own responses.

How Learning Develops

In Key Stage 1, children establish the foundations of drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and collage. They develop control of tools and materials and begin to make deliberate choices about colour, texture, pattern and composition.

In Lower Key Stage 2, pupils extend these skills through more complex techniques. They use perspective, tone, photomontage, monoprinting, mixed media and increasingly detailed observational work.

In Upper Key Stage 2, children are expected to combine techniques and media with increasing independence, making more sophisticated choices about composition, surface, colour, form and meaning. The current curriculum includes combinations of drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, digital work, printmaking and mixed media.

How We Teach Art

Art benefits particularly from clear modelling followed by space for independence.

Our whole-school teaching routines support this.

I → We → You allows teachers to demonstrate a technique or process before pupils practise with guidance and then apply it within their own work.

Scaffold → Fade means visual instructions, examples, prompts or partially structured processes may be used initially and removed as pupils become more secure.

Retrieval, little and often helps pupils recall important vocabulary, techniques and previous learning.

Words & Visuals supports understanding of specialist artistic vocabulary and processes.

Live modelling is especially important in Art. Children need to see how a tool or technique is used, but the aim is not for everyone to reproduce the teacher's outcome.

Inclusion in Art

Art should be accessible to every child.

Teachers adapt access to the process rather than lowering the artistic expectation.

This may include:

• adapted tools or materials

• larger-scale working

• visual step-by-step instructions

• additional live modelling

• reduced physical demand where necessary

• alternative ways to hold or manipulate media

• extra opportunities to practise techniques.

The aim is for all pupils to participate meaningfully, make choices and develop increasing independence as artists.

Assessment

Assessment in Art focuses on the knowledge, process and decision-making shown by pupils, not simply whether a finished piece looks attractive.

Teachers consider how well children can:

• use taught techniques

• select and control materials

• apply artistic vocabulary and knowledge

• make informed choices

• explain aspects of their process

• refine ideas and respond to what they have learned.

Sketchbook work, experimentation, discussion and final pieces can all contribute to understanding what a child knows and can do.

Our Art and Design Curriculum

The document below shows how Art and Design is organised and developed from Year 1 to Year 6.