Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. At Salesbury, we aim to provide a high-quality art and design education which engages, inspires and challenges 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 country and the world.

Art and Design can draw upon a whole range of relevant resources, including the use of ICT and it is the aim of our school to make maximum use of a variety of these opportunities.

Teachers use Blooms Taxonomy to plan the learning and questions within the units of work. The learning is scaffolded by using a WAGOLL and a ‘model, share, create’ approach. Development of skills is an important part of art teaching so, with a Growth Mindset approach, pupils are supported in their endeavours to improve, redraft and refine their work, developing their skills progressively from EYFS up to Year 6. The use of knowledge organisers ensures that pupils recall and build on previous learning. Individual expression and personal responses and styles are actively encouraged and celebrated, in order to reduce creative inhibitions and promote the confidence to work freely.

Pupils are encouraged to find inspiration for their artistic expressions in a wide variety of sources; the natural world, the built world, music, writing, personal experiences and the work of artists, designers and craftspeople, past and present, from around the world. Local artists work with the pupils on creative projects, e.g. children in Year 6 recently made bowls on a potter’s wheel with guidance from a local pottery artist, and pupils visit art galleries, e.g. Year 3 recently visited Bankfield Museum to study the History of fashion. Pupils in EYFS make good use of outdoor and indoor areas to create and display art work.

Extra-curricular provision includes a weekly after school Art Club for UKS2 pupils and after school short blocks throughout the year for EYFS and KS1 children.

By the end of their time at Salesbury, we hope all our pupils have learned, improved and embedded a range of artistic skills. They should have an awareness of a broad range of artists and craftspeople, and be able to consider and discuss the artworks they come across developing the appreciation for the great works of others and have found vocabulary and emotive responses to discuss these.

We want our pupils to be confident to explore, experiment and take risks, placing value on the process and journey that they take, not just on the finished product. Most importantly, we want children to have found and enjoyed a creative outlet – a means of self-expression and enjoyment and see art as a means of wellbeing finding a media or practice that helps them feel more relaxed, or stimulated as needed.