Intent

At Fairisle Infant & Nursery School, art is a valuable part of our learning to enable a broad and balanced curriculum. We believe that lessons focussing on a variety of skills, allows children to make progress and develop their individuality as artists. Throughout learning, we encourage children to respect their right to be the best they can be, editing and improving work to create pieces they are proud of. By engaging with a variety of artists, children become confident in their artistic capabilities and they can learn a variety of techniques including sculpting, painting, sketching, weaving and printing. These lessons offer progression and an opportunity for all children to develop their interests and become lifelong artists.

Implementation

Our learning at Fairisle Infant & Nursery School is progressive in skills, but also varied to allow children to find an artistic skill they enjoy and something that inspires them. Within Early Years, children have the ability to use a variety of materials including paint, string, junk modelling and other objects to create. Children build on their gross and fine motor skills by using large chalks and media to allow them to develop the tripod grip to support them with art throughout the school. Children are encouraged to use their imagination to develop their ideas, and use conversations with teachers to facilitate this. Children work in abstract forms to ensure they succeed. It is also in Early Years where children learn how to mix paints to create different colours, and notice the changes in different media. Within our Early Years classrooms, we teach children to use materials and equipment safely to support them to respect their rights to be safe throughout their time in school.

In Year 1, children continue to build on the skills learned in Early Years and develop their fine motor skill grips when re-creating their own self-portraits in the style of Picasso, Seurat and Klee. Children are taught to refine their pencil grip and begin looking at shading, whilst experimenting to allow all children to be included within abstract working. Children in Year 1 explore changes to materials, linked to their science work to create sculptures using clay and weaving using materials around the classroom. This further develops our classroom community when creating a group woven piece. Furthermore, linked to the topic work children complete they experiment with different materials to create a collage.

Building on colour in Year 1, children in Year 2 further explore primary and secondary colours to create their own watercolour piece. Children also decorate a puzzle piece to support our inclusive ethos, and show children they have the right to be whoever they want to be. Children then develop their skills and understanding of colour when they use mixed media to compare Mondrian and Pollock, recreating their designs using computerised materials. To bring all learning together, children are able to create large scale water colour piece based on our minibeasts topic, inspired by Rousseau.