Le Rondin School

Subject Lead: Anthea Roue

Intent

At Le Rondin School we recognise the Arts as an essential form of expression and the importance for every child to experience cultural and artistic activities as part of a broad and balanced curriculum.

The Arts can enhance the well-being and communication needs of our children as well as providing opportunities to celebrate their uniqueness and diversities and that of others. The Arts curriculum promotes the school ethos and vision of placing pupils first and facilitating joyous and purposeful learning.

The intent is for all pupils at Le Rondin to use the formal elements through a range of materials and processes to communicate what they see, feel and think. The children are able to use sensory exploration to gain knowledge and understanding of the world in which they live. Through the arts activities they learn to make informed judgements and aesthetic and practical decisions, becoming actively involved in shaping environments and experiences. Children develop their interest and curiosity about the arts through lessons offering skills progression, knowledge progression and offering children the opportunity to ask questions and demonstrate their skills in a variety of ways. They learn about the diverse roles and functions of art, craft and design in their life, locality and the historical impact on wider society, cultures and times. We provide experiences of gallery exhibitions, music and drama performances and communicate and work alongside visiting artists to contextualise art within the world of work. The children participate in many community art projects, which helps them to understand that appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts have the power to enrich public lives and promote positive mental health and well-being

Implementation

To ensure pupils experience a wide breadth of learning opportunities, allowing the development for long-term memory of an ambitious body of procedural and semantic knowledge, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. The Arts are taught as part of termly topics by class teachers through planning that is supported with schemes of work such as Kapow. A member of the Guernsey Music Center visits the school on a weekly basis to teach class groups as well as individuals for string lessons. The school has an art specialist who delivers a bespoke Art curriculum to every child at Le Rondin during weekly PPA time in a well-resourced Art Room.

Having an Art teacher on site allows the opportunity for the skills and knowledge of this subject to be taught progressively from year group to year group whilst supporting the needs of all children. The teaching is adapted through the planning and dynamically during lessons to ensure learning is accessible for all the needs of the children as well as challenging and encouraging development. The work is assessed termly and consistently monitored to ensure growth. The pieces and explorations made by the children are collected and shared digitally through Seesaw to ensure interaction with home and to be kept as evidence of progression. Our Art lessons involve the experimentation of the formal elements: line, tone, pattern, texture, shape, form, and colour alongside primary and secondary art sources. The children are able to practise and develop mastery of the key skills in art by recording, designing, making and discussing art with a variety of techniques and materials such as printing, photography, watercolour and acrylic painting, textiles, sculpture and collage. The Art Curriculum at Le Rondin is in accordance with the Guernsey Curriculum and intertwines schemes like Kapow and Chris Quigley. The children’s knowledge and skills are built upon a sequence of lessons that lead to a final piece or display, often linked with a local art project which becomes a positive whole school community shared experience. 

Impact

• The Arts learning is enjoyed by teachers and pupils across school.
• The children are keen to learn new skills.
• The children develop confidence, value and appreciation in the Arts and in their own abilities.
• The children begin to show an aesthetic awareness which enables them to reflect and respond creatively to the Arts.
• The children will develop fine and gross motor skills alongside a better understanding of the world around them.
• The children are encouraged to express and develop their own ideas, feelings, thoughts and make connections to experiences.
• The children develop an ability to value the contribution made by their peers, other artists and respond critically and imaginatively to ideas, images and performances.
• The arts can be cross-curricular, allowing the children to apply what they have learnt including technical vocabulary across subjects.
• The children can develop life skills such as emotional and social skills, team work, perseverance and problem solving.
• The children’s achievements in the Arts are celebrated and shared in a variety of ways in the school and wider community, including the local newspaper, which encourages pride.