The aim of the art curriculum is firstly to foster and hone students’ passions for art with open minds to enjoy engaging with art throughout life. The curriculum aims to equip pupils with the skills and knowledge they create original, interesting and high-quality work, ultimately preparing them for GCSE Art and beyond. At KS3, pupils undertake a variety of different projects in different material disciplines on a mixed ability carousel. Each unit of work lasts 8 weeks and the KS3 course last three years. The KS3 course is designed to prepare students for the necessary skills required for GCSE Art and beyond.

Pupils will learn to confidently explore and investigate how to, and how artists, create visual images. They will learn how to apply these processes to their own creative work and progressively deepen their knowledge, understanding and appreciation of art. Students will develop a range of subject-specific skills, language and techniques; they will learn how to create and experience art in an imaginative, engaging and creative way. The curriculum will be delivered through regular and structured opportunities to reflect and evaluate their own and others’ work across a range of cultures and content.

The curriculum is continually reviewed and updated each year to improve progress. This is dependent on NC/Exam board requirements, student cohort ability, non-specialist teaching staff.

The curriculum is designed to enable all pupils to have success and make progress, no matter what their ability. Each lesson, objective, task, skill is broken down into smaller steps, and lessons are continually reviewed to ensure no–one is left behind. Often, lessons are tweaked to ensure specific planning for less able pupils, e.g. to allow them more time to create a drawing, or more time on printing if they are having success with it. Templates are often used, e.g. when the accuracy of drawing is not the main learning, a fully or partially drawn template can be given to pupils. This is sometimes the case for example when we are working on a pen tonal drawing – having the pupil spend hours drawing meaning they might not actually have time to get onto the pen work, which is the main focus of the learning, seems a poor use of their time when we have already completed a drawing focusing on accurate planning and mapping out.

SoW across KS3 have been designed with GSCE specification points in mind. Each project is geared to build upon prior learning, with a focus on the following areas; Practical Skills, Artist Studies and Final Piece, similar to the GCSE assessment objectives. Pupil progress is measured against these areas.

The sequence of lessons and units of work at KS3 has worked well in building skills. This helped to bridge the gap when pupils study the course at GCSE.

Schemes of Learning: Projects are updated and improved to accommodate the learners on reflection of short and medium- planning.

Assessment design: Pupils can actively reflect and improve on work with mid-point assessments.