Art

Art Vision

To progress pupils' skills and creativity in drawing, painting, collage, 3D art, textiles, printing, use of IT, sketchbooks and knowledge and for them to understand that this is the process of making art.

Curriculum

At South Hill, we want to inspire all of our pupils to experiment with art, to see it as an expression of self/mood and to take ownership of their work. Through the use of sketch books, pupils are encouraged to evaluate, experiment and work creatively to ensure they have a freedom of expression in the subject.

In EYFS, pupils are introduced to the building the blocks of art through the key learning area ‘Expressive arts and Design’. In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, pupil’s skills and knowledge are developed through our golden threads, which progress throughout the school and allow us to build on previous knowledge and to make links between what we have already learnt and what we are learning now and in the future:

We study a wide variety of artists and learn many artistic techniques.

For example:

In EYFS, pupils experiment with collage based on the work of Matisse
In Year 1, pupils study close ups of flowers inspired by Georgia O’Keefe
In Year 2, pupils print with leaves through learning the Japanese technique of ‘Hapa zome’
In Year 3, pupils draw with pencil and charcoal in the style of Quentin Blake
In Year 4, pupils research and recreate the work of Watercolour artist Adrienne Pavelka
In Year 5, pupils study the history of sculpting to create an Egyptian decorated tool box
In Year 6, pupils learn to create a World War 2 landscape print in the style of Paul Nash

Arts Mark Gold and local links

South Hill have been awarded Gold in the ‘Arts Mark’ to reflect ‘…children's understanding of arts and artists from a wider variety of different cultural heritages, so that cultural diversity is being promoted through your arts curriculum…’. We also have a strong link with our local secondary school and a local private school, who run workshops with Upper Key Stage 2 pupils every year to extend pupil’s skill development.

Whole School Art Gallery

We run an annual art week, where as a school we work with one topic or theme (for example ‘Patterns in Nature’). We explore different skills and styles and produce a final piece of art. This art work is then displayed in a whole school art gallery to which parents are invited to view with their children. Parents can purchase their children’s work, treating the event as a true art gallery.

Art competitions

We encourage children from EYFS up to Year 6 to take part in art competitions, run and judged both in house and by external companies. For example, we have entered the ‘Dacorum Young Artist’ competition and the ‘CPRE Art’ competition. As a school, we celebrate all who enter, by displaying all entries in assembly and awarding certificates and house points.