Art and Design Subject Leader: Ms M Portundo
Pupils are given the opportunities to explore their ideas through creative mediums; unleashing their imagination and learning vital skills including drawing, painting and sculpting.
Intent
At Whitehill Primary, we value Art and Design as a vital part of a broad and balanced creative curriculum. Art enables children to explore and make connections with the world around them, while contributing to their emotional, aesthetic, spiritual, intellectual, and social development. We approach Art with a non-judgemental mindset, celebrating mistakes as opportunities for learning and recognising that creative potential exists in everyone. We value both the artistic process and the finished work.
Our curriculum provides opportunities for children to develop skills across a range of media and materials, while fostering critical thinking and cultural understanding. Pupils study a diverse range of male and female artists, craftspeople, and designers, drawing on both local and global influences.
We aim to:
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Provide high-quality, varied art experiences that engage all children.
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Foster enthusiasm, creativity, and imagination through tactile, visual, and sensory experiences.
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Develop understanding of colour, form, texture, pattern, and the ability to communicate ideas, feelings, and meanings.
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Encourage informed aesthetic judgement and active involvement in shaping environments.
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Inspire confidence, enjoyment, and pride in artistic expression.
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Enhance appreciation of the contribution of artists, craft workers, and designers, and encourage critical and imaginative responses.
Through this approach, Art at Whitehill nurtures creativity, personal expression, and a lifelong appreciation of the visual arts.
Implementation
At Whitehill Primary, our Art & Design curriculum is carefully planned and implemented through a coherent, sequential progression that supports skill development, creative exploration, and cultural understanding from early years through to Year 6. Teachers use the Art & Design Learning Progression Document to guide long-term, medium-term and short-term planning, ensuring that each pupil’s learning builds on prior knowledge and skills while offering new challenges.
Art & Design lessons are delivered regularly as discrete lessons, with opportunities for cross‑curricular links when appropriate. Each unit is structured to include a clear sequence: introduction to formal elements and techniques, experimentation and practice, development of ideas (often through sketchbooks or preparatory work), culminating in a final piece or outcome. Through this process-based approach, children explore and experiment with a wide range of media and materials, including drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, collage, mixed media and design.
We emphasise an inclusive and open‑minded attitude: mistakes are celebrated as part of the creative process, every child’s creative potential is recognised, and the process of creating is valued as much as the finished outcome. Through exposure to a diverse range of artists, craftspeople and designers, from different times, cultures and backgrounds, pupils develop critical understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage and artistic expression.
Assessment is ongoing and formative: teachers observe pupils at work, review sketchbooks and final pieces, support reflection and evaluation, and adapt subsequent lessons to meet pupils’ needs and ambitions. This ensures meaningful progression in both skills and creative thinking across the school.
Impact
Each child has an art sketchbook which serves as a cumulative record of their work and is passed on to the next teacher at the end of each year. Samples of children’s work are also collected.
Class teachers will complete a Planning Sheet that will act as a termly record of work covered. Monitoring takes place regularly through sampling children’s work, teacher planning and lesson observations. Simple assessments are recorded at the end of each unit identifying those children who are working below, at or above age related expectations.
The Art subject lead conducts regular and robust monitoring activities including learning walks, a book look and data analysis to gauge the impact of our Art and Design curriculum, in addition to reviewing the curriculum to ensure that it meets the needs of all learners. Staff training is provided when necessary and data findings are shared with whole school staff to address gaps and improve provision for all pupils.
Art and Design in Each Stage
In EYFS, Art & Design is delivered through experiential, play‑based and sensory activities that encourage children to explore materials, textures, colours, shapes and marks. Children are given freedom to experiment, mark‑making, painting, simple printing, collage, helping them to develop fine motor control, creativity, and early visual vocabulary. They are encouraged to explore with curiosity and confidence, express themselves freely, and build a foundation of enjoyment, confidence, and appreciation for art.
In KS1, children begin to develop fundamental art skills: using drawing, painting, basic printmaking or collage to express ideas, feelings and observations. Lessons combine skill‑based tasks (learning about colour, line, shape, texture, pattern) with opportunities for imaginative and expressive artwork. Teachers introduce children to a variety of artists, craftspeople and designers, including diverse traditions, helping children to make connections between their own creative work and wider cultural contexts. Units are planned so that children practise techniques, explore ideas in sketchbooks or planning sheets, and complete a final piece to reflect on their learning.
Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 & 4)
In Lower KS2, the curriculum builds on prior learning and extends both technical skills and conceptual thinking. Pupils experiment with more complex media and techniques (for instance combining media, exploring 3D work, or more detailed painting and drawing). They further explore formal elements, colour, form, texture, space, pattern, and begin to make more deliberate design choices in their work. Units encourage creativity and individual expression, while also fostering critical awareness by studying the work of a broader range of artists, designers, and cultural influences. Pupils record their ideas, experiment in sketchbooks, and produce more considered outcomes.
Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 & 6)
In Upper KS2, children explore art and design with increasing sophistication, combining technical proficiency, creative experimentation, and conceptual depth. They may work across different media: drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed media, design, and approach projects with greater independence and ambition. Through studying a rich diversity of artists and cultural traditions, pupils develop a deeper understanding of art’s role in society, history, and individual identity. They use sketchbooks confidently to plan and develop their ideas over time, revisit and refine their work, and reflect critically on their own and others’ creations. The curriculum encourages pupils to take creative risks, develop their individual style, and value the process of artistic discovery as much as the final product.
Art and Design Progression
Inclusion & Equal Opportunities
Art and Design forms part of the school’s curriculum policy that provides a broad and balanced education for all pupils, whatever their ability and individual need. Staff strive to meet the needs of all pupils with special educational needs, disabilities, special gifts and of those learning English as an additional language. We recognise the fact that we have children of differing ability in all our classes, and ensure that all children are able to access the art curriculum and support is provided through differentiated resources and focus activities where need is identified to both support and challenge students within their work.
Enrichment & Beyond the Classroom
At Whitehill Primary School we enjoy taking part in workshops and learning experiences in the wider community; through which we also make cultural links. We welcome the celebration of art through different mediums at Whitehill including: celebration galleries, work home, and social media presentations.
People with an interest, or expertise, in a particular topic or area of art could be invited into school to work with the children. These might be parents, grandparents, other family members, neighbours or representatives of the local community.