Art and design fosters creativity, imagination and confidence: skills that are transferable to every other subject on the school curriculum. At St Nicholas of Tolentine, we believe that a strong art education can give young people an appreciation of why art matters. It allows children to understand where it comes from, and where it fits in a wider social, historical and political context. As well as being an enjoyable and pleasurable subject to study, art gives students an understanding of the world and themselves.

At St Nicholas of Tolentine Primary, we follow The National Curriculum to plan age appropriate lessons as part of a thematic curriculum. The National Curriculum for Art and Design aims to ensure that all pupils;

•  produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences;
• become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques;
• evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design;
• know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms

Please refer to class pages to see the exciting curriculum that our learners are helping to create.

Term 1

Reception have enjoyed settling into their new classroom and exploring all the different arts and crafts resources the classroom has to offer. They have been using different painting resources to create self portratits of themselves.

Year 1 & 2 have been learning all about flight! They have studied Jim Darlings window paintings to create their own window collages. 

Year 3 have enjoys using pencils to create different shades. They have also designed and created their own carnival masks.

Year 4 have been looking at artwork by William Morris. They discussed their thoughts about William Morris' designs. 

Year 5 have explored artwork by Lowry and created their own football pitches using oil pastels. 

Year 6 have enjoyed learning all about Andy Warhol and created their own self portraits using pop art!

Term 2

Reception have been introduced to the artist Yayoi Kusama. They explored her spotty pictures and created their own pumpkin spots inspired by her!

Year 1 & 2 have enjoyed learning all about the artist Hundertwasser. They went out on a school trip the explore houses in our area to compare them with the houses Hundertwasser painted. They also explored patterns in the natural world to inspire them to make their own Hundertwasser style artwork. 

Year 3 has explored the artist Jackson Pollock to create their own volcano splatter artwork. They also used clay to create their own volcanoes which we then used in our exploding science experiment.

Year 4 has learnt all about Wassily Kandinksy to help make their own Christmas cards inspired by him.

Year 5 have enjoyed learning about the artist Damian Hurst.

Year 6 looked at the artwork produced by Henri Rousseau.

Term 3

Reception have been exploring the artist Bridget Riley. They have been creating their own Bridget Riley artwork by creating lots of different line patterns using primary colours and black and white shades. 

Year 1 & 2 have recapped their learning about Bridget Riley to create their own animal print patterns using oil pastels to create a class collage. 

Year 3 have looked at the artwork by Howardena Pindell. We explored the colours and collage effect she uses to create our own representation of a Viking long ship. Year 3 and 4 enjoyed their colour mixing lessons to support their skills.

Year 4 have been exploring paintings of the Swiss Alps. They have used the artist Katsushika Hokusai to support their skills of using 3D effects to show the form of a mountain. 

Year 5 have explored natural artwork using Nizar Ali Badr as inspiration. It was lovely to see their amazing art collages using natural materials in their class assembly. 

Year 6 has been creating clay models inspired by the artist Lorien Stern. 

Term 4

Reception have been creating minibeasts out of clay. They practiced their skills by using playdough first and then worked their way up to using clay. They used their fine motor skills to pinch, roll and join clay to create their own minibeast. Once dry, they painted their minibeasts using observational colours. 

Year 1 & 2 have been learning all about TingaTina art. They used inspiration from this artwork to create their own printed paintings. They have also been creating baskets by using weaving techniques.  

Year 3 have looked at the artwork by Banksy. We have used Banksy's work to inspire us to create our own graffiti tags. We used different styles such as block writing, bubble writing and bar writing. We then used contrasting colours to make our graffiti stand out.

Year 4 have been exploring the work of Gaudi. They have then created their own moasic pictures, practicing overlapping skills.

Year 5 have designed and created an ancient Greek temple as well as designed some Greek pots. 

Year 6 has been exploring clay to create a scene from the Blitz. 

Art Club

Every Thursday lunchtime Miss Phipps runs an art club to support the children's skills. In Term 2 she has worked with Year 3 and Year 4 children to create a jungle scene. We started by mixing the primary colours blue and yellow with some white paint to create lots of different shades of green for our background. 

We have then moved on to create trees using collaging and we have also made them 3D by curling paper for the leaves. 

We will then create animals using print before adding all of our art work together to create our final jungle scene.

Next term Miss Phipps will be working with children in Year 5 and Year 6 to support their artistic skills!

In Term 5, Miss Phipps will be running an Art and DT club after school every Thursday. This will be for Year 5 and Year 6! We will be exploring skills of sewing to create a soft toy, printing as well as sculpting.