ART is as natural as sunshine and as VITAL as nourishment 

MaryAnn F Kohl

Art and Design stimulates creativity and imagination and is an important area of children’s learning. It provides visual, tactile and sensory experiences and a special way of understanding and responding to the world. It is expected that during their time at St Lawrence Catholic Primary School, our pupils are given opportunities to explore and evaluate artists and communicate what they see, feel and think through the use of colour, texture, form, pattern and different materials and processes.

The National Curriculum for Art and Design aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
• Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
• Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
• Know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.

Pupils at our school value the role Art and Design plays in their lives and consequently achieve well in their own artistic endeavours. It is taught every half term on a weekly basis. Our pupils enjoy taking part in various competitions and have their very own Arts week in the summer. We turn our school hall into an Art Gallery and allow parents & adults to enjoy our pupils’ work.

Pupils also enjoy taking part in various competitions throughout the school year. We have participated in the Mayor’s Fourth Plinth competition, The Global Canvass Endangered species competition, Steve McQueen Tate Y3 project, SSA Paint a poppy challenge and Feltham Pond competition organised by the London Borough of Hounslow. In addition to this, we like to link in with our local community and partake in events that enrich the cultural and local knowledge of our children, as advocated by core British Values. To do this, we work closely with local and national agencies.

By the end of Key Stage 2 our children are able to:

• Record from experience, imagination and first-hand observations, developing and realising their ideas with confidence.
• Select and record visual and other information in a sketchbook.
• Experiment with, control and select ideas, media and visual elements for different purposes.
• Identify ways to develop and improve their work.
• Evaluate their own and others' work, using an appropriate vocabulary, showing an understanding of how and why the work was made.