Art and Design and Technology
"Art encourages children to think, developing skills and confidence as they go." (F. Kohl)
Art:
At Hillcroft, the primary purpose of the Art Curriculum is to inspire the children to be creative and experimental, and respond with individuality, allowing them to develop their own style over their time here. We develop the children’s basic skills and techniques, using a wide range of media and materials, with increased confidence and purpose. The children will learn the skills of drawing, painting, printing, 3D art, collage, textiles and digital art, and these will be layered over time and be visible and evident in the children’s final pieces of artwork. The teaching will be focused and modelled clearly, giving all children the best opportunity to access the learning.
The children are introduced to, and develop a knowledge of a range of artists and genres, and are encouraged to appraise and evaluate artwork through discussion and critical response. They also learn to reflect on and evaluate their own artwork, and that of their peers.
Art is a subject through which mindfulness can be achieved and a calm atmosphere is created, with an ethos based on all children being artists at every level, to enrich their experience and create an enthusiasm for the subject.
Design and Technology:
At Hillcroft, we believe that design and technology helps to prepare children for the developing world and encourages them to become curious and creative problem-solvers, both as individuals and as part of a team. We encourage our children to use their creativity and understanding when developing ideas, planning, making products and evaluating them. Whilst enabling them to talk about what they like and dislike when designing and making.
Design and Technology also embeds our HIllcroft Learning Behaviours. It is an inspiring, and practical subject, requiring creativity and resourcefulness. At HIllcroft, the Design and Technology curriculum combines skills, knowledge, concepts and values to enable children to tackle real problems. We aim to, wherever possible, link work to other disciplines such as mathematics, science, computing and art.
We adapt our teaching of design and technology to meet the needs of all pupils, and provide learning opportunities that enable them to make progress. The children are encouraged to become risk takers and to foster enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose in designing and making.
Pupil Voice:
I love the fact that you can be creative and let your mind run free. Emily, Year 3
I love art because I love painting and drawing. I want to be an artist when I grow up.
Rae, Year 1
I like DT because we can build things like our houses. I get to be creative and learn new skills
Lana, Year 2
I enjoyed making our project last term in DT where we made a moving solar system model. I learnt all about the solar system but also learnt new skills.
Emilia, Year 5
Progression of Skills and Knowledge:
At Hillcroft Primary School, we follow the National Curriculum. From this, we ensure that skills and knowledge are taught in the appropriate year groups to ensure progression and sequencing.
Across Early Years, to ensure progression from the newly published Early Years Framework into KS1, we follow the revised and updated July 2021 version of Development Matters. In our Nursery, children are aged three and four, and so the progression maps show the objectives related to Three and Four year-old objectives. However, some children join after just turning three, therefore, with these children and following rigorous assessment of starting points, it may be deemed necessary to look at the Birth to Three objectives too. For more information on this, please see the Nursery and Reception year group pages.
Below are links to our Progression of Skills and Knowledge documents.
