At Northern House Academy our Art and DT curriculum is built around and underpinned by our School values. As such our approach is designed around understanding the needs of each individual child, is unapologetic in its high expectation, knowing that our children are not defined by their needs but instead viewed with the positivity they need in order to be nurtured both emotionally and academically, it is consistent in order to enable a safe environment where our pupils are empowered to take risks and experience success and it must be an Art and DT curriculum that promotes the simple pleasure of happiness.
We believe that a high-quality art and design curriculum should not only engage and equip our learners with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful creators, but should inspire and challenge them in the process. We intend to create a love of learning that is deeply rooted in creative thinking, experimental processes and a sense of achievement. We strive to do this by enabling students to celebrate and take pride in their own created works of art, craft and design.
We want our pupils to be able to think creatively and critically, about the procedures that underpin art and design project development, and for them to develop a comprehensive understanding of the actions and processes that are necessary in order to create finished pieces. We also want to ensure that our pupils apply these creative and critical lenses to styles of art and for them to be able to think rigorously about how art and design shaped our history, contributed to cultural shifts and enabled diversity to be acknowledged and celebrated across the globe throughout history.
In addition to our formal curriculum package many of our pupils benefit from our art therapist who comes on a weekly basis, offering bespoke support to specific pupils. Many of our pupils also choose to access Arts and Crafts during their weekly star time offer or daily celebration time.
To support our pupils developing knowledge, we assess our pupils against National Curriculum Attainment Targets using the Northern House Academy ‘Learning Objective Descriptors’. These enable our teachers to choose learning objectives for their pupils that are well matched to their development and ensure progression of skills across galleries and key stages within our academy.