Art and Design Technology
Intent
At the Framework Federation we value learning and teaching art and design technology as it provides children with the opportunities to:
- foster an understanding and enjoyment of art, craft and design
- experience a broad and balanced range of art and design activities and show progression within these experiences
- develop their ability to observe, investigate, respond to and record the world around them through a growing variety of forms and media
- develop use of a range of tools, media and processes
- develop an understanding of the work of artists and apply this knowledge to their own work
- provide opportunities for studying historical, cultural and religious art
- develop an understanding of the design process and evaluate their final product
- extend and enrich other curriculum areas
Art and design technology enables children to communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form, pattern and different materials and processes. Children become involved in shaping their environments through art and design activities.
Implementation
The skills and knowledge that children will develop throughout each art and design technology topic are mapped throughout the school to ensure progression. The emphasis on knowledge ensures that children understand the context of the artwork, as well as the artists that they are learning about and being inspired by. This enables links to other curriculum areas, including humanities, with children developing a considerable knowledge of individual artists as well as individual works and art movements. A similar focus on skills means that children are given opportunities to express their creative imagination, as well as practise and develop mastery in the key processes of art: drawing, painting, printing, textiles and sculpture.
The school’s high quality art curriculum is supported through the availability of a wide range of quality resources, which are used to support children’s confidence in the use of different media.
Impact
Classroom displays reflect the children’s sense of pride in their artwork and this is also demonstrated by creative outcomes across the wider curriculum. The school environment also celebrates children’s achievements in art and demonstrates the subject’s high status in the school, with outcomes, including sculptures, enhancing the outdoor as well as indoor environment.
The art and design technology curriculum at the Framework Federation contributes to children’s personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection.
At the Framework Federation, Design and Technology (DT) is closely linked to the Art Curriculum but is also strongly cross curricular. Topic areas always include the opportunity to make structures, models and gadgets linked to areas of study such as history – (iron age houses, jars form Ancient Greece) and science (torches when studying electrical circuits and healthy smoothies when looking at food and nutrition). There is also a strong link to Computing when programmable mechanisms are designed using BBC microbits.
Pupils are given multiple opportunities to design, make, evaluate and gain technical knowledge in 4 main areas:
Structures – This could include models for topic areas across the curriculum such as castles, iron age houses or Egyptian Death Masks to link with history studies
Mechanisms – This could include pop-up books or greetings cards in literacy or the wider curriculum. It could also include electrical devices designed and made as part of the studies of electricity in science (a working torch) or forces (toys which rely on magnets or pneumatics.) It could include toys made in history to look at toys from the past or in PSHE to look at people who keep us safe (fire engines). Working lighthouse models as part of studies into the seaside. It could also include programmable devices whcih monitor surroundings such as microbits which can be programmed and made in computing sessions.
Textiles – This could include tapestry work to look at pastime in the past or making puppets to support work in literacy or history (seaside holidays.)
Food and nutrition - This could include food preparation for festivals and celebrations (pancakes, toffee apples etc.) or healthy smoothies or meals linking to science topics.