Intent

At Thornhill, we provide a high-quality Art education that has been designed to engage, inspire and challenge pupils. It is our intent to provide all children with the fundamental knowledge, skills, and techniques needed to independently create their own unique drawings, paintings, sculptures, and crafts. They are empowered to think innovatively, critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of Art, they are encouraged to develop critical thinking and are provided with a safe space to take risk and make decisions. These skills are not only essential to school but are also life skills children need to thrive in and around modern Britain and have a positive impact on the wider community.

Throughout their time here, they will get an insight into how art both reflects and shaped our history, and contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. Whilst exploring history, we also make links with other areas of our learning such as Geography, where children can incorporate their local area and local artists. Whilst encompassing the wider curriculum, we empower children to discover great artists that will enable them to explore their own and other’s cultural heritages.

We give the children opportunities to feel able to share and express their individual creativity, independence, resilience, and self-reflection. We want the children to have a natural sense of wonder and curiosity when studying a wide variety of artwork.

We give the children the time and space to explore new themes, new sensations, and ways to be creative without the need to be perfect. We want our children to trust the process, self-reflect and evaluate, trust their ideas and feel a sense of pride, achievement, satisfaction and enjoyment at every step of the learning journey, not just their end outcome.

It is through the children’s personalised experience of art at Thornhill, that we enable the children to feel safe, secure, and happy, to produce their most inspired, expressive and creative work and ultimately learn more about themselves.

Implementation

The Thornhill Primary School Art curriculum has been carefully designed to ensure children are continuously building upon the knowledge they have learnt previously and have opportunities to apply these skills widely. Teachers use the progression of knowledge and skills to ensure that learning builds upon previous understanding and moves forward. Every year, children are given the opportunity to explore the key elements of our art curriculum; mark-making, tone, colour, pattern, texture and textiles and form. Each learning cycle includes time to explore the skill and relevant artists and to plan, create and evaluate their own creative responses, reflecting their own personalities.

Each child has their own sketchbook, which they take with them from year group to year group, this records their responses to art and photos of any sculpture or textile works they produce. It also showcases their learning from year to year and allows children to reflect and enjoy the sense of pride in the progression of their skills and creative journey throughout their time at Thornhill Primary.

Key Threads