“We wanted to create an art curriculum which would help primary schools deliver a really exciting, rich and forward thinking visual arts education, whilst at the same time giving non-specialist and often inexperienced teachers the support they need to feel confident and happy teaching art.”
We’re really proud of our new curriculum and we hope you like it too. Here’s a taster of why we think this art curriculum is really special.
The new AccessArt Curriculum is broad, rich, contemporary & diverse
It’s our aim that by the time every child leaves primary school they can feel as if they have found an area of the visual arts that is relevant and engaging to them – that might be through drawing, or making, or designing, or talking about art.
To achieve this it’s important that we create as many different kinds of opportunities as possible so that each child can find the thing which strikes a chord with them. That means covering lots of different disciplines, techniques, materials and approaches. It can be complicated knowing what to fit in and what to leave out, and how to order elements, but we’re confident that all versions of our curriculum provide a balanced yet rich offering, with progression of knowledge and skills woven throughout.
In practice, that might mean one day a child is practising observational drawing skills, another day they are working from their imagination making larger scale images, and another day they are discussing as a class how the context in which art is presented can change it’s meaning. The richness and relevance of experience makes learning memorable and impactful.
When a child leaves Year 6 and you ask them “What does being creative mean to you?” we want them to be able to answer with confidence and self-knowledge.
The new AccessArt Curriculum doesn’t just build upon what came before, it redefines how we might best teach art in schools.
We’ve thought carefully about the purpose of art. Not just in relation to the purpose of teaching art in school but the relevance of art in all our lives.
And this is important because at the moment, although artists help shape and define our lives in so many ways, we seem to have lost touch as a society as to the purpose art serves, and there is a danger that art is seen as disposable, or a nice added extra.
The new AccessArt Curriculum helps build knowledge and understanding in pupils (and teachers) as to some of the ways art is relevant to all our lives. By combining technical skills with contextual and conceptual understanding our curriculum helps ensure every pupil feels entitled to embrace their own creativity as something which is important to them, and something which is valued by society.
The new AccessArt Curriculum offers flexibility & growth
When we began to write our curriculum we knew one thing very clearly – we didn’t want Ofsted to visit schools and see the same activities being done at each stage in every school. It was vital to us from the start that we create a curriculum which schools can tailor and adapt to suit their needs. In the short term we have achieved this by writing options into pathways, and giving guidance as to how schools can tailor what is there. But in the long term this is also about teacher growth, and a big part of the new curriculum is in the support and training we will give to teachers to help you understand how to construct your own pathways, making them relevant for you and your pupils. In practise this means that our new pathways are suitable for all teachers to follow, whilst giving plenty of support and space for growth.
In addition, new pathways will be created going forwards, enabling teachers to swap out areas of exploration whilst keeping progression intact, making sure that teaching and learning is always fresh, inspired and relevant.
