Overview

Our art curriculum is exciting, rich and forward-thinking, designed to inspire creativity, imagination and a love of art.

Carefully sequenced to build knowledge and skills progressively, children explore a broad and diverse range of media, underpinned by four key disciplines: colour theory, drawing, painting and sculpture.

Every lesson begins with our unique ‘Draw More’ exercises, which develop observational skills, stimulate creative thinking and support artistic ideas across all mediums.

Children are inspired by a wide range of artists and designers, including local Sheffield creatives, and are encouraged to understand how art has evolved over time.

We aim for all pupils to visit at least two art spaces during their primary years, fostering curiosity, creative risk-taking and a deeper connection to the wider world of art and design.

Nursery

  • Colours

  • Mark making

Reception

  • Harvest colours

  • Jungle plants

  • Children learn the names of the primary colours and how to mix secondary colours

Year 1

  • Autumn floor

  • Drawing and sculpture: how artists are inspired by the environment

  • Still life

  • Children learn that still life is the painting or drawing of inanimate objects

Year 2

  • Pumpkin pots

  • Drawing and sculpture: how artists are inspired by the environment

  • Children learn how to use their hands to shape clay

  • Portraits

  • Children learn that portraits are artistic representations of people

Year 3

  • Fossils

  • Children learn that artists can be inspired by science and nature and learn how to use print using different techniques

  • Sculpture

  • Children learn that sculpting is working materials into a 3D form and study the work of Barbara Hepworth

Year 4

  • Coil bowls

  • Children learn that ceramic artwork is created with clay materials

  • Landscapes

  • Children learn about great artists who have been inspired by landscapes

Year 5

  • A Sheffield perspective

  • Drawing and watercolour

  • Children learn that perspective is a way of representing 3D objects on a 2D surface

  • Architecture

  • Children learn that architecture is the design and construction of buildings

Year 6

  • Brave colour

  • Children learn that humans react emotionally to colour and explore artists who have worked with colour

  • Floral wallpaper design

  • Children learn that design in Victorian times was inspired by nature and study the work of William Morris