Art and Design

Curriculum overview

Overall Intent 

Aim: to create independent, confident and brave students who challenge the visual language in the world around them. 

The Art and Design curriculum at King Edward V School, Lichfield has been created to build a wide range of skills and knowledge as learners progress through the Key Stages. In Year 7 the focus is on building the students own personal skill set, making sure all the key, core knowledge is embedded. As they move through Key Stage 3 and 4 the students get the opportunity to respond to a subject, theme, task or brief, evidencing the journey from initial engagement with an idea(s) to the realisation of intentions. This will give students the opportunity to demonstrate, explore ideas (both practical and written) and use materials, techniques and processes, thus aiding the development of skills, knowledge and understanding.  

Embedding Literacy 

Developing and being able to communicate opinions is key within our curriculum. We strive to develop student’s verbal and written communication and ability to read around the subject in order to validate their opinions or findings. Students are given a variety of opportunities to practice and display their literacy skills throughout each year. For example in Year 7, students are asked to analyse a piece of text from a fictional book; then produce their own work around the theme.  

Being able to analyse and evaluate work is paramount to our creative process, the students are taught how to do this in order to help their work develop and progress. Students are encouraged to question artists work, their own work and the world around them, in order to inform their thinking and produce artwork that realises their intentions and shows their understanding of visual language. 

Encouraging independence 

The art curriculum encourages independent thinking. The Key Stage 3 overview enables the staff to have the autonomy to deliver their lesson themes individually, ensuring ideas and topics remain current and reflect events occurring globally; such as our Summer Festival theme last year ‘war on plastic’ or our Big Draw event in 2018 marking 100 years since the end of the First World War. Lesson themes aim to spark interest and discussion in our learners, motivating them to carry out independent research around the topics provided. 

Our focus in Year 7 is to embed the core art skills focusing on the formal elements, ensuring students have the in-depth skill set required. As we move further up the school, the skills instilled in Year 7 are the building blocks allowing us to experiment and develop their creative independent process. Tasks are outlined, but the criteria is broad so it allows the students to explore and refine their own work as it progresses. Research topics are based around classwork and students are always given an introductory lesson outlining the criteria and to focus their research so that the task is manageable. Students are then given the freedom to present and interpret the instructions in a creative independent way.  

Creative Enrichment 

In addition, there is a wide range of creative opportunities across the key stages for the students to engage in; in the classroom environment these include:

• The Colour Wheel Challenge
• Year 8 Homework Challenge
• Artists Workshops
• Gifted and Talented Workshops
• Art Club

School trips to The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Chatsworth, London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Paris, and New York City enable the students to see artwork in situ, helping them to appreciate artwork first hand and understand the artists’ intentions. Students then have the opportunity to exhibit their own work in the Summer Festival and end of Key Stage 5 showcase.

Key Stage 3 Curriculum

Key Stage 4 Curriculum 

Staff

The following members of staff form the Art and Design department at King Edwards: