Art & Design

Art & Design Intent

At Horley Infant School we aim to stimulate pupils’ creativity, imagination and experimentation by providing visual, tactile and sensory experiences that enable them to understand and respond to the world.

We believe in providing all children with inspiring and engaging opportunities that build on previous learning and challenge children to aim higher with their achievements. Our intent is to make art fun, enjoyable and accessible, while encouraging and supporting children to explore, develop, record and evaluate their skills within drawing, painting and sculpture. Children also learn about great artists, craft makers and designers. This knowledge is often delivered through a cross-curricular approach as it can incorporate history, science and design and technology. Children’s knowledge is further extended by the wide-ranging vocabulary associated with the world of art and design.

What does Art & Design look like in our school? (Implementation)

To ensure progression of skills through the year groups, we focus on 2 particular areas of art – close observational drawing (particularly self-portraits) and colour mixing.

Drawing
These skills begin in Reception where children learn to look carefully at their faces, realising the accurate placement of facial features. Children in Year 1 build on these skills and progress to developing a range of mark making skills through investigating textures of objects. They also experience a range of observational drawing experiences, learning to look carefully and recreate what they see. When drawing a self-portrait, the children build on their knowledge from Reception to create a line drawing. In Year 2 children build on these drawing skills further. They use the mark making and close observational skills to draw toys in the ‘London’ topic and create a tonal self-portrait.

Painting
Children in Reception use ready mixed paint to develop a colour wheel of primary and secondary colours. Children in Year 1 use powder paint to mix the colours they learned in Reception and develop ways of altering the texture of the paint. Children in Year 2 use Brusho paints to create varying effects. They also use powder paint to develop their painting skills further. Throughout these experiences at Horley Infant school we integrate the teaching of the work and lives of artists, craftspeople and designers from the past and present. In Reception children create work in the style of Andy Goldsworthy. In Year 1 children learn about David Hockney, Vincent van Gogh and Barbara Hepworth. In Year 2 children develop work in the style of Hokusai and Henri Rousseau.