Being an Artist
Being an Artist Champion: an approach to Art and Design
What is the point of Being an Artist?
Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. As pupils progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.
The aims of being an Artist are:
- produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
- evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
- know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
Where does it come from?
Being an Artist is integrated into our curriculum through Curious-city. An enquiry-led, local learning approach to the National Curriculum 2014. This approach recognises that the cognitive maturity of learners affects what and how they learn. It also encourages teachers to think of how they encourage learners to Being an Artist instead of simply teaching them Art and Design.
Within a Curious-city curriculum, there is no ‘skills or knowledge’ debate. It is seamless blend of both, and through every enquiry, learners are challenged to work independently to prove their understanding of Being an Artist.
What does Being an Artist entail?
- Provide encouragement and ideas to staff across the school
- Monitor content and enquiries and be mindful of coverage ‘v’ skill acquisition
- Collect and evaluate different voices with regard to Being an Artist.
- Ensure enquiry planning and floor books are sufficient to effectively represent Being an Artist.
What is ‘covered’?
Essentially, a Curious-city curriculum uses the National Curriculum 2014 areas as a basic foundation of entitlement. However Curious-city is much more than that. It is localised, real-life and challenges learners to apply their learning in unique ways without the support of adults to prove what they have learnt. Local companies, charities, organisations, individuals and objects are used as foci to enhance and instill a sense of curiosity, pride and stewardship.
How is Being an Artist monitored and assessed?
Every term, through a family ‘sharing of learning’ event, Being Champions review floor books and displays of learning shared with families. This helps to not only ensure coverage and ‘matching up’ progress throughout a year group in line with the whole school curriculum map, but also gauge learner and family reactions to learning and provides an opportunity to collect different voices.
Every two terms, Being Champions meet as a team to discuss and share what they are seeing and hearing, and as working as a team, help to review the school’s curriculum and contribute to the development plan. One of the Being Champions is then designated to report to the Senior Leader Team.
As there is no requirement to formally report attainment of Art and Design, Being an Artist is assessed through monitoring how a learner responds to enquiries and whether they show a particular enthusiasm and disposition towards it, or, if they constantly needed support in order to access it. This information is recorded onto the medium term plans which are kept and used for report writing towards the end of the year.