Why do learners at The Nethersole Academy need to study Art and Design?

At Nethersole Academy, our curriculum design is based our school ethos. Art at our school should: Ensure that we expose the children to a cannon of artistic wonder and expression across the range of artistic genres. We want our children to build their confidence in discussing, debating, appreciating (or not..) art from across history.

In our knowledge and progression documentation we have broken down national curriculum end points into mile stones. Our medium term planning then breaks this down further into teaching points. Teachers then adapt these teaching points to reflect the needs of their children. We use assessment at the point of delivery (exit tickets) to help assess whether children are retaining key knowledge. We revisit this knowledge through cumulative exit tickets and through retrieval practice (hinge knowledge) to ensure that children retain their understanding over time.

We believe that all children within our school deserve the highest quality of education. We work to ensure that regardless of need we adapt our curriculum to meet the needs of our SEND and MA pupils.

We carry out termly assessments of the knowledge and skills that our children can demonstrate in order to assess which knowledge needs to be retaught to our children. For our MA children, we also explore activities that can be used to deepen the children’s understanding.

We believe that art lessons will engage, inspire and challenge all children to think creatively and develop artistic understanding. The children will learn to develop and express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas alongside building confidence and critical-thinking skills. They will be able to express their emotions and learn how art can be used to express their feelings in many ways.

By studying Art our children gain the knowledge and skills needed to experiment, invent and create their own works of art. They know that Art and Design is reflected in our history, and contributes to the culture and creativity around us. Within Art and Design lessons the children will have access to a wide range of high quality materials. This will enable the children to learn how to use and experiment creatively with different media.