Art Intent 

The National Curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils experience a high-quality art and design education which engages, inspires and challenges pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment and create their own works of art, craft and design.

At Martley, we value art as an important part of our pupils’ entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. We intend for our art curriculum to provide children with opportunities to experience the world around them and express themselves in a variety of ways, whilst also widening and deepening their essential knowledge and skills. We endeavour to present opportunities for our pupils to develop and extend their skills and to express their individual interests, thoughts and ‘God-given talents’.

We aim for the pupils at Martley to grow a love of artistic composition, self-confidence and a sense of achievement by exploring a broad range of artistic media with which to draw, paint and sculpt. The art curriculum starts off by laying the foundations of creativity in the Early Years, enriched year on year with a carefully designed curriculum that spirals and revisits essential knowledge, skills and techniques so that the pupils develop more control and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design.  

We believe that exposure to many art genres, artists and cultures will help pupils to recognise and respect the diverse world we live in. Children at Martley can explore the artistic world by producing creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences to become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques, whilst also evaluating and analysing creative works using the language of art, craft and design. We believe that art emboldens our core values of ‘creativity, compassion, commitment, co-operation and courage’ with the intent that our children will enjoy and explore their own innate creativity throughout their time at Martley and instil a lifelong freedom to express themselves creatively.

Art Implementation

At Martley, our art curriculum follows the 2014 National Curriculum. This is supported by a clear and descriptive progression of skills map for each year group. We use the National Curriculum 2014 to design and implement our art lessons. This ensures that foundational art knowledge is introduced from the Early Years curriculum and is built on year-by-year. Each year group will learn more about drawing, painting and sculpture, over half-termly units. Our curriculum is designed to ensure the children experience a range of art and artists: modern, traditional and contemporary. Using modelled vocabulary, children will learn to discuss how art has been created, what methods, media and techniques have been used and they will be encouraged to offer their interpretations and opinions on it. The curriculum covers a range of substantive knowledge (practical knowledge of how we make art, the methods, techniques and media), theoretical knowledge (knowledge of art and its history) and disciplinary knowledge (paradigms of art , such as modern, traditional and contemporary).