Within the curriculum, our main aim is to ensure children see the relevance of the artists they are studying: a) to their own lives and b) to the projects. So all artists we link to in our Talking Points are chosen on those grounds.
The National Curriculum as you know states “know about great artists, craft makers and designers” and there is general agreement amongst experts that this is very outdated. For too long there has been a focus on “dead white male” artists, almost always judging “great” from a Western perspective. We now understand that looking at art from a colonial perspective is not appropriate. So we really need to go beyond this now, and look at all kinds of artists, from all kinds of backgrounds, countries and perspectives. Doing this makes art as accessible and inclusive to as many pupils as possible.
Our understanding is that as long as you can explain why you have chosen the artists you have, Ofsted will be happy. If as a school you decide you do want to supplement (not replace) the existing artists with more “traditionally great” artists then you can do so – but do bear in mind that if you do this too much you will end up by default with male dead artists.
Darron-Craig O
October 30, 2023 @ 9:11 am
I have been asked by my headteacher to provide ‘top tips’ for supporting Art at home. These top tips will be going out in the weekly newsletter. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Rachel
November 6, 2023 @ 9:18 am
Hi Darron thanks for your message. We don’t have a speciific list of ‘top tips’ but more, our ethos is embedded into all our resources and content. Our ‘8 Values’ post will give you an idea of how AccessArt works, with the central message that art is an inherently exploratory subject and that open ended learning, with gentle scaffolding, enables children to best explore their creativity and not feel that ‘failure’ is a negative thing. https://www.accessart.org.uk/8-values-accessart/. If you would like any more info please feel free to email rachel@accessart.org.uk. Many thanks!
Jenny D
April 18, 2024 @ 9:07 am
Do you have any resources specific to artists such as LS Lowry?
Rachel
April 22, 2024 @ 9:26 am
Hi Jenny, We don’t have anything specific to Lowry, although you could adapt a resource to fit explorations of his work. We have a range of ‘Talking Points’ weaved into the curriculum that look at artists’ work in detail. You can find these here: https://www.accessart.org.uk/talking-points/. You could look at our architecture page and use the work of Lowry to support the architecture pathway in the curriculum: https://www.accessart.org.uk/architecture/ and https://www.accessart.org.uk/be-an-architect/. I hope this helps!