At Dean Gibson, our Art and Design curriculum kindles creativity, individualism and imagination within our children. It provides an opportunity to express ourselves and the diverse world around us through the use of different media. We aim to provide our children with enriching opportunities in Art and Design with the chance to create and appreciate Art. We are curious about and learn from significant artists and develop our skills. We introduce our children to a diverse range of artists and the ways in which they work. We take inspiration from key events in the calendar and other areas of the curriculum in order to get creative. We endeavour to make use of the outdoors to aid our enjoyment and learning within Art, taking inspiration from the natural things that we can find to create art and creating Art in the outdoor environment.

Our Curriculum

The National Curriculum
As artists we…
In KS1 we aim to:
• to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products
• to use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share ideas, experiences and imagination
• to develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
• learn about the work of a range of artists, craft makers and designers, describing the differences and similarities between different practices and disciplines, and making links to our own work.

In KS2 we aim to:
• develop techniques, including control and use of materials, with creativity, experimentation and an increasing awareness of different kinds of art, craft and design.
• to create sketch books to record observations and use them to review and revisit ideas
• to improve mastery of art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpture with a range of materials, such as pencil, charcoal, paint, clay
• learn about great artists, architects and designers in history.

In Year 2 we had the opportunity to complete our ‘Small Steps, what matters to me’ Printfest 2023 project with Nicki and Esther the artists. We had a go at screen printing our backgrounds and making the print blocks of the things that matter to us most before completing relief printing over the top. Our final prints will be displayed at Printfest 2023 on Saturday 29th April and Sunday 30th April. More information is available here: https://printfest.uk/ . What a fantastic experience.   

Nicki the artist said….

The children at Dean Gibson RC Primary School are currently collaborating with local arts charity Kendal Windows on Art (KWoA) on the ‘Small Steps: what matters to me’ community project. This creative project aims to rebuild the self-confidence of children in the Kendal community, which had been noted to be greatly diminished following the impact of Covid lockdowns and restrictions. In considering ways of sharing what matters to each child participant, a range of creative writing and art activities are being explored.

The children based in Year 2 were very excited when given the opportunity recently to work with Printfest print artist Esther Benson. They shared their ideas from their ‘what matters to me’ research discussions and their interest in the landscape as well as their friends, families, pets, hobbies and studies was apparent.

This enabled Esther to introduce the work of print artist Gill Mason to the children, looking at her monotype screen prints of imagined or remembered landscapes and emotive use of colour. The children were fascinated when they explored colour theory and the creating of primary, secondary and tertiary colours through colour mixing techniques. The children then thoroughly enjoyed screen printing layers of colour to make landscape backgrounds on to which they block printed, using blocks they had made inspired by their research and design ideas.

“This project is supporting the rebuilding of the children’s self-confidence post Covid lockdown and restrictions and being able to develop their own ideas through screen printing and block making and printing with Esther has been a huge help,” said KWoA programme manager Nicki Smith. “The opportunity to share their ideas and printing skills with regional and national audiences through exhibiting their collaborative artworks at Printfest, will have a huge impact on the children’s self-esteem and make them feel valued in the wider community.”

The children in Year 4 worked with Kendal Windows on Art community artist Nicki Smith to create this work for Printfest 2022. They were inspired by the words of Sir David Attenborough, quoted in the Printfest Primary Brief, and the class took time to consider “Why is the world precious?”

 The children gave many different answers to this question and then thought about seeing their words floating in the air. They then developed this idea to help them to create their artworks. They wanted to consider sustainability in the ways they worked so they chose to work on recycled cardboard and use up existing school paint supplies.

Working with Nicki, the children explored stencilling and masking using freshly designed and cut stencils, ready cut stencils and masking tape. They printed with sponges which had textured surfaces that the children created. They made their own letter printing blocks with donated funky foam and recycled cereal packaging (this took a lot of thought as you have to reverse/turn around the letters ready to print) and printed with these blocks. They also explored adding ‘airy’ texture by printing with bubblewrap. Everyone really enjoyed the whole messy fun experience and is proud of their printing work - especially seeing it displayed!