St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“Caritas Christi Urget Nos –

The love of Christ urges us to care for each other and strive for excellence in everything we do.”

Art & Design

Art & Design

Art Curriculum Intent

Our intention is that all young Vincentians will experience success as an artist through an engaging art curriculum, one which will provide pupils with opportunities to explore the arts creatively and imaginatively using a range of media. Children will be enabled to produce pieces of art that they can feel proud of and their finished pieces of work will be celebrated through our website, displays in school and in whole school events such as Carols in the Gallery.

Studying art throughout their time at St Vincents through our project based learning approach will give children a chance to think and act practically with their minds and hands.

By the end of year six, children will be familiar with recording their artwork in sketchbooks and planning and designing their own final pieces, drawing inspiration from famous artists and sculptors. All Y6 pupils will have created 3-D products using media such as clay or modroc and by the time they leave our school all pupils will have learned key art techniques including: drawing, painting, printing and sculpting.

By the time they leave St Vincent’s pupils will be familiar with the study of famous art pieces and be able to evaluate the choice of colour, lighting and other techniques used by the artist. They will also be able to provide reasons why the artist may have adopted particular techniques.

The children will be able to transfer all the skills they have acquired to evaluate their own work objectively.

Art & Design National Curriculum Objectives

Click link above to download a copy of the Department of Education's Art & Design national curriculum objectives.

Skills Progression

Art and Design Curriculum Map 2023-24

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Curriculum Intent

At St Vincent’s it is our INTENT is to enable ALL children to thrive through the opportunities we provide them with, in order to:

  • Live their lives by the Gospel and Vincentian values instilled in them at school.
  • Understand that everyone has the right and responsibility to live in our world constructively and ensure that we leave it in a better state than when we entered it by living and working through the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in line with the UNCRC (United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child)
  • Experience creativity across the curriculum through specialist art and dance lessons and opportunities to take part in art, music, dance and creative writing competitions.
  • Know the joy of outdoor learning, the rich biodiversity within our school grounds and locality and develop a responsibility for the environment we share as stewards.
  • Understand their place in the world, globally and locally, knowing the history of our school, Mill Hill and the Daughters of Charity and knowing where our diverse community members have their roots across the world.
  • Be ready and well-prepared for their next steps in life, having high aspirations for themselves and for others because they have experienced success and a belief in learning from mistakes.
  • Have a life-long curiosity, stimulated by the driving questions of Project Based Learning approach to the curriculum fostering inquiry and independent learning skills, which give confidence to ask big questions about the world.
  • Be literate and numerate having experienced a rich variety of texts to stimulate and excite the mind while developing skills in investigating and problem solving to enable them to excel in their future passions.
  • Be confident and happy young people that have a broad understanding and tolerance of the world and others around them with excellent communication skills honed by their experience of Restorative Justice and respect of the dignity and wishes of the individual.

Curriculum Context

St Vincent’s is a 1.5 form entry school with 285 children ranging from 4 -11. Children come predominantly from the parishes of Sacred Heart in Mill Hill and St Anthony’s in Edgware.

Children come from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, speak 17 different languages and hail from 26 different ethnic groups. The curriculum we present, and promote, to the children is an endeavour to reflect these differences by providing opportunities to explore the different countries, languages and customs our children are part of through the projects they investigate. We have looked closely at the context of our school, the backgrounds of the children and how life is for a child growing up in North London today. We have used the underlying principles of our Catholic Faith and the example of our namesake St Vincent to create a set of values which lie at the heart of our curriculum.

We are aware of the changing nature of society and the pressures faced by young children as they enter the next stage of their education. The rise in Mental Health related issues has been widely documented across the media. Therefore, issues such as internet safety and the enormous impact across society of social media are at the forefront of our minds when planning our curriculum. With the current worldwide concerns relating to Covid 19, racial justice, equality and diversity, as well as gender and economic background, we feel it is our duty to prepare the children through a concerted focus on building independence, resilience and communication skills linked to our Vincentian Values.