Art & Design
Intent
At Woodchurch C of E Primary School, our Art and Design curriculum is designed to nurture pupils’ creativity, imagination, and visual literacy, encouraging them to think and work like artists and designers. Using Kapow Primary’s Art and Design scheme of work, we aim for pupils to develop the confidence to experiment, express ideas, and communicate meaning through a range of visual and tactile media.
Our curriculum promotes an appreciation of art as a powerful form of human expression, enabling pupils to understand its significance across different cultures, historical periods, and creative industries. We intend for all children to develop knowledge, skills, and critical thinking through engaging and ambitious learning experiences that inspire curiosity and individuality. The scheme supports strong teacher pedagogy through carefully sequenced lessons, high-quality resources, and inclusive approaches that ensure all pupils can access, enjoy, and succeed in Art and Design.
Implementation
At Woodchurch C of E Primary School, our Art and Design curriculum is designed to nurture pupils’ creativity, imagination, and visual literacy, encouraging them to think and work like artists and designers. Using Kapow Primary’s Art and Design scheme of work, we aim for pupils to develop the confidence to experiment, express ideas, and communicate meaning through a range of visual and tactile media.
Our curriculum promotes an appreciation of art as a powerful form of human expression, enabling pupils to understand its significance across different cultures, historical periods, and creative industries. We intend for all children to develop knowledge, skills, and critical thinking through engaging and ambitious learning experiences that inspire curiosity and individuality. The scheme supports strong teacher pedagogy through carefully sequenced lessons, high-quality resources, and inclusive approaches that ensure all pupils can access, enjoy, and succeed in Art and Design.
Art and Design is taught weekly across four units in each year group and alternates each half term with Design and Technology. Kapow unit hubs contain all the necessary lesson links, resources, and information relevant to the unit being taught. Information within the unit hubs corresponds directly with all relevant Art and Design key documents, including the Progression of Skills and Knowledge and Vocabulary Progression documents, ensuring clear progression and curriculum coverage across the school.
The school is currently on a three-year transition journey to fully embed the Kapow Primary curriculum and ensure complete skills and knowledge coverage across all year groups.
SEND
The Kapow Primary Art and Design scheme of work is designed to be fully adaptable for pupils with SEND. Every lesson includes an adaptive teaching section, providing clear guidance on how activities can be modified to meet the needs of all learners.
Children learn in a variety of ways and the curriculum reflects this through a range of inclusive strategies designed to support and challenge every pupil, including:
Scaffolding opportunities that allow additional support or challenge where required.
Multi-sensory approaches to engage and motivate learners.
Clear instructions and structured tasks that reduce cognitive load and support understanding.
Opportunities for both collaborative and independent learning, enabling pupils to work at their own pace while developing confidence and independence.
By embedding adaptive teaching throughout, the scheme ensures that all pupils, regardless of their starting points, can access and succeed in their learning. In addition, the carefully sequenced, step-by-step curriculum design supports pupils with SEND by avoiding sudden jumps in complexity and allowing for manageable progression over time.
Knowledge Retention
Kapow Primary’s Art and Design scheme is built around a spiral curriculum model, enabling children to revisit and deepen their understanding of key themes, skills, and concepts as they progress through the school. This approach helps pupils make meaningful connections across topics, reinforce prior learning, and develop mastery over time.
Kapow Primary Knowledge Organisers further support this process by clearly outlining the key knowledge, vocabulary, and concepts covered within each unit. These serve as valuable reference tools for both teachers and pupils, helping to consolidate learning and strengthen long-term retention.
Recap and recall activities are embedded throughout the curriculum to:
Activate prior knowledge and support links between new and existing learning.
Strengthen memory pathways through regular retrieval practice.
Identify misconceptions and gaps in understanding before new learning is introduced.
Build pupil confidence and engagement by reinforcing successful recall.
Promote spaced learning through regular revisiting of key concepts over time.
Assessment
Formative assessment is embedded throughout Kapow Primary Art and Design lessons to ensure that teachers can gauge pupils’ understanding in real time and adapt teaching accordingly.
Each unit also includes an assessment quiz, allowing teachers to measure pupils’ understanding at key points within the learning sequence. These assessments support teachers in evaluating how effectively pupils have retained and applied key knowledge, vocabulary, and artistic skills over time
Impact
At Woodchurch C of E Primary School, we strive to provide our children with the skills to equip them for life. We encourage all pupils to ‘THRIVE’ by developing trust in themselves and those around them; to be hardworking, resilient, inspired, and to value both their own experiences and the contribution they make to others. Most importantly, we want children to enjoy school and develop a lifelong love of learning, giving them the key skills needed for their future.
Our inclusive and engaging Art and Design curriculum equips children with the knowledge, confidence, and practical skills to experiment, invent, and create their own works of art, craft, and design. Through the use of a wide range of materials, media, and techniques, pupils become creative thinkers who are able to express ideas, reflect on their learning, and develop increasing independence. By creating engaged learners we create chidlren who are well prepared for the next stage of their education, building confidently on the skills and knowledge they have already developed. Children leave Woodchurch C of E Primary School with high aspirations for their future, alongside a curiosity and desire to continue learning, exploring, and creating throughout their lives.
British Values and Christian Distinctiveness
British Values and Christian Distinctiveness As a Church of England School, mutual respect is at the heart of our values. Children learn that their behaviours have an effect on their own rights and those of others. All members of the school community treat each other with respect and follow our three school rules: ‘Be Respectful, Be Ambitious and Be Proud’. As a friendly and welcoming primary school in Woodchurch, an area facing significant challenges; our children learn about British Values like respect, tolerance, democracy, liberty and law. We appreciate and celebrate diversity through the teaching of stories, values and celebrations from a variety of faiths and cultures.