Creative Arts

Creative Arts Leads: Brooke Davidson (Discover), Rachel Pattison (Explore), Helen Thompson (Engage), Sarah Burlison and Jess Pearce

Engage:

Creative Arts in the Engage pathway includes Arts, Crafts, Music and Drama.

Our Creative Arts sessions are based around our half-termly topics to allow the children to explore aspects of the topic in a creative and expressive manner. Our wonderful children are given opportunities to engage with adults and learn new skills such as painting, singing, exploring musical instruments and role play allowing them to express themselves in a variety of ways and demonstrate their own unique personalities. They learn to link resources to activities, such as knowing that a paintbrush means it’s time to paint, or a tambourine means time for music. Creative Arts allows for opportunities to make those early links which then allow them to flourish and be able to express themselves with increasing independence.

We have a weekly Creative Arts session where we look at a specific skill through our topic as well as these skills for Creative Arts becoming embedded throughout our days with songs and craft resources, role play in our outdoor provision and opportunities during choice time for our children to engage with arts and crafts in their own child led way. Links are often made through Creative Arts with EHCP targets for our children.

Our work is evidenced in our observations of the children and displayed in our pathway to celebrate all of their amazing achievements.

Explore:

On the Explore Pathway, Creative Arts is delivered with reference to discrete subjects such as Art, DT, Music and Drama.

We encourage creativity in all children by providing opportunities to express themselves using a variety of materials, resources and processes to create their own work. Children are able to investigate in Creative Arts by exploring techniques and resources. We often use a piece of music or artwork as a starting point, with a focus on composers and artists, and use this to influence our work in class.

Creative Arts is linked to a half-termly topic and activities are planned around a theme from our Cycle topic maps. While Creative Arts is delivered as a discrete session once per week, it is embedded in other subjects and curriculum areas such as Forest School, Cookery and Culture and Enrichment. Key skills can also be used and taught in other areas of the curriculum; it is important to give teachers the autonomy to decide when to include skills from Creative Arts so links to the subject are purposeful for pupils.

The Explore Pathway record work and activities in Topic books. Outcomes may be linked to individual EHCPs and learning maps while being tailored to individual needs and objectives.

Discover:

The Creatives Arts refer to Art, Music and Drama, as well Arts component within Design & Technology, ICT and specialisms such as Photography and Animation.

Our Creative Arts curriculum develops creativity, sets challenges and inspires students and also equips them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, take risks, invent and create their own works of art, music, drama.

The curriculum offers appropriate subject knowledge, skills and understanding to support students to explore, investigate, create and evaluate artwork. It enables pupils to create art work with a real purpose when displaying and sharing the work they create and showcasing the skills and progress they have made.

All Arts subjects are delivered to meet the needs of our SEND students by developing subject knowledge through the development of practical skills and understanding of both their own development and the way artists and industry professionals work towards creation of final arts pieces. Repetition, creativity, challenge and the development of skills seek to give all students the necessary tools so that they can comfortably take risks in their work within a safe and nurturing environment. The use of task plans and portfolios further enable students to develop independence and pride in their artistic accomplishments.

The Arts team seek to offer students opportunities to see the Arts in action by providing opportunities for visits to galleries, concerts, theatre and circus, thereby cementing the Arts in context and developing independence and responsibility.

KS4 students are currently following a Creative Arts curriculum in line with their relevant pathway, where they continue to develop their knowledge and skills in Art, Music and Drama.