Art and Design

The aim of teaching Art and Design at Janet Duke Primary School is to develop children’s motor skills, language skills, decision-making, risk-taking and inventiveness. We also use Art and Design to inspire children to connect with their own culture and those of the wider world.

In our school, children are taught about a variety of famous Artists and learn to be Artists, themselves. Children are encouraged to make Artistic choices from the Early Years Foundation Stage all the way through to Year 6, and we teach them a variety of techniques and processes to inspire, challenge and support them. 

Foundation Stage children learn and develop towards the Early Learning Goal in Expressive Arts and Design, which covers their progress in ‘creating with media and materials’ and ‘being imaginative and expressive’.  Children have access to a wide range of materials, techniques and processes every day and are encouraged to use this imaginatively.

Year 1 children are taught Art and Design under the following topics: Self-Portraits & Colour Mixing, African Patterns and Famous Landmarks.

Year 2 children are taught Art and Design under the following topics: Polar Regions, The Sea and Architecture & Designers.

Year 3 children are taught Art and Design under the following topics: Stonehenge, Portraits and Egyptian Masks.

Year 4 children are taught Art and Design under the following topics: Pop Art, Mosaics and Sculpture.

Year 5 children are taught Art and Design under the following topics: Sculpting Vases, A Sense of Place and Banksy.

Year 6 children are taught Art and Design under the following topics: Portraits, Optical Illusions and David Hockney.

At the beginning of every topic, a unit plan is produced that details the objectives for each unit, practical work that will be completed, key vocabulary, models, diagrams and key questioning. These are working documents and are adapted as per the needs of the children. We feel that child led learning is extremely important and therefore try to follow the children’s direction wherever possible whilst still achieving our objectives. Teachers plan individual lessons using a range of different schemes of resources to ensure that lessons are as engaging and exciting as possible for our children.

Art Gallery

The children in years 1-6 design, develop and evaluate their Art using their sketchbooks. Here are some photos of the children’s wonderful work.