The Intention:

At Leyland Methodist Schools we are proud to hold an Artsmark Silver Award. This award celebrates our school’s dedication to providing a rich, creative Art curriculum that is tailored to the needs of our learners. Our curriculum fosters the spirit of exploration, promotes creative talent through the development of key skills, encourages our children to strive for excellence within all aspects of the arts and celebrates all levels of success.

Art and the National Curriculum:

The National Curriculum Programme of Study provides the bedrock of our Art Curriculum at Leyland Methodist Schools and underpins all work that we do. It works on the premise that the key skills of drawing and painting are the foundations for all artwork and must be revisited, refreshed and developed regularly in order to achieve mastery. From these foundations, all other forms of artwork; sculpture, printing, batik, textiles, collage and digital art can then be explored from a strong creative starting point.

Using the National Curriculum document as a baseline, we have also undertaken a thorough Curriculum Needs Analysis, studying the characteristics of our learners here in Leyland to ensure that our curriculum fulfils their requirements. We now have a suite of topics which offer diverse and motivating learning experiences in Art linked to Science, History, Geography and English. To complement this, we have also developed a detailed Progression Document that maps out the key skills in learning throughout all aspects of Art and shows what these skills look like at each level from Year 1 through to Year 6. This progression document provides clarity for both teachers and learners alike – it signals clearly what the expected level of progress looks like at each Key Stage and aids the assessment in what is a notoriously difficult subject to measure.

Cultural Capital:

At LMS we firmly believe that Art offers the perfect opportunity to develop our children’s cultural experiences. We therefore aim to provide a programme of enrichment opportunities each year to elevate our curriculum to outstanding levels. These opportunities have included gallery visits to various venues over recent years including exploring the Harris Museum and Gallery in Preston. Here, our children enjoyed a workshop delivered by a Fine Arts specialist and have had the opportunity to study and recreate the artwork exhibited as well as create their own with expert guidance. We have also visited the world renowned Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where our children have been able to see first-hand the range and diversity of artwork by comparing Ancient Greek sculpture to contemporary modern art. These experiences provide vital opportunities for our learners to see and understand what excellence looks like and gives them something to strive for within their own learning journey.

To compliment this, we also believe that inviting artists into school provides invaluable opportunities for children to meet, question and learn from professionals. It helps us as a school to consolidate the culture of ambition, showing our children what is possible. Local sculptor Steven Charnock has led full day workshops in 3D work using the mediums of clay, plaster of paris, wire and recycled materials and professional printer Alan Birch has focused his workshops on using ink to create images from the Arabian Nights. Both artists have then led staff training sessions to impart expert knowledge to further enrich the children’s learning experiences.

Finally, we also recognise the importance of celebrating and showcasing the work of our developing artists here at Leyland Methodists and so we provide regular opportunities for exhibition throughout the year. At these Pop-Up Gallery events, parents are invited in to see their children’s work displayed alongside other year groups and learn about what their child has been studying in Art. Alongside this, we also exhibit annually at the South Ribble Museum in Leyland and at the Methodist Church Galleries held at various venues over the years.

Diversity:

Our Art curriculum offers diversity in the range of artists that we cover. Celebrating the successes of all local artists, both men and women, is important to our culturally rich and diverse Art curriculum.

We show children that anyone can produce captivating, awe-inspiring and challenging artwork as it is a medium of expression that is personal, diverse and is born out of experience.

Therefore our children are introduced to a whole array of different artists from all walks of life. There are children who have received guidance from a female fine-arts specialist at the Harris Museum and Gallery, those that have benefitted from work-shops led by a local male sculptor who owns his own bronze foundry in Ormskirk and who is responsible for producing the sculpture in the car park at Morrison’s in Leyland and those who have enjoyed a print workshop based on the Arabian Nights with an older gentleman artist. All local artist, all with different specialisms.

As well as looking at the talent that lies within Leyland, our children also get to explore traditional artwork from a range of eras i.e. the work of the Impressionists, they explore work from other cultures and marvel at some of the more challenging modern art on display at the Walker Art Gallery – having the opportunity to compare it to Ancient Greek sculpture. We explore both ancient and contemporary European artwork – from Greece, Italy and Scandinavia, as well as exploring artwork from further afield: looking at pieces from the Amazon basin, Central America and print-work inspired by the Arabian Nights.

We truly believe that Art is open to everyone and everyone can succeed.

Equality of Opportunity:

‘We truly believe that Art is open to everyone and everyone can succeed’.

With this in mind, providing a rich and varied Art curriculum for our Pupil Premium children is vital. All visits out of school to introduce our children to the world of art, are funded through the Pupil Premium strategy for those who need it. Similarly, we have ensured that year groups with particularly high levels of vulnerable children have benefitted from visiting artists leading full day workshops, all of which have been funded through the schools commitment to achieving Artsmark. We have allocated money to ensure that we provide an enhanced and enriched curriculum for all.