The Art and Design curriculum at Portway Primary has been designed to engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. It aims to provide the pupils with opportunities to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. Pupils develop an understanding of how art and design both reflect and shape our history, contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.
Our Art and Design Curriculum develops essential characteristics of artists:
The Art and Design curriculum is designed to help pupils form an Art and Design mental model within their long-term memories.
Schema theory states that all knowledge is organised into units. A mental model is, therefore, a conceptual system for understanding knowledge.
Our Art and Design mental model is a way of organising Art and Design substantive and disciplinary knowledge in a meaningful way; it is an appreciation of how facts are connected and the ways in which they are connected. It is distinct from information, which is just isolated facts that have no organisational basis or links.
BigIdeas help form the basis of the mental model. Big Ideas are key concepts that underpin the subject. There are three Big Ideas in Art and Design:
Each Big Idea has knowledge strands which help to strengthen the mental model. Learning knowledge in each of the strands allows pupils to express and demonstrate their understanding of the Big Idea, which gradually develops as pupils return to them over and over again.