Art & DT Curriculum

Intent

At Parkside Community Primary School, our Art & Design and Design Technology curriculum nurtures creative, confident pupils who can explore ideas, develop practical skills and design purposeful outcomes for real users. Rooted in our vision of “Nurturing and Inspiring Young Minds Toward a Bright Future”, pupils learn to experiment, invent, make, evaluate and improve while studying significant artists, craft makers, designers, architects and engineers, including people with protected characteristics whose achievements help pupils understand that creativity, innovation and design belong to everyone. 

We intend that by the end of their time at Parkside pupils will:

• Produce creative work by exploring ideas, recording experiences and developing their own visual, practical and design responses through drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles, construction, digital media, food technology and product design. 

• Become progressively proficient in key Art & Design skills, including colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form, space, drawing, painting, sculpture and the controlled use of materials, tools and techniques. 

• Apply Design Technology skills by researching needs, generating and communicating ideas, making prototypes and products, selecting appropriate tools and materials, testing outcomes, evaluating against criteria and refining their work. 

• Know about a diverse range of significant people, including artists, designers, craft makers, architects and engineers with protected characteristics, so pupils recognise how identity, culture, disability, gender, race, belief, age and lived experience can influence creative practice and innovation.

Art & DT Curriculum Overview

Implementation

Our Art & Design and Design Technology curriculum is underpinned by Parkside's Teaching, Learning and Assessment and Live Feedback Policy: 

Curriculum sequencing and lesson structure 

Units are sequenced so pupils revisit and deepen core skills over time: generating ideas, using sketchbooks and design books, experimenting with materials, making purposeful outcomes, evaluating work and improving through feedback. 

Lessons follow a clear structure: creative or design question; study of a significant person, product or artwork; modelling of a technique or process; guided practice; independent making or designing; and reflection against artistic intention or design criteria. 

Teaching and scaffolding 

Teachers explicitly teach subject vocabulary such as line, tone, form, texture, mechanism, structure, prototype, function, aesthetics, nutrition and evaluation, using worked examples, visual prompts, demonstrations and high-quality models. 

Practical skills are broken into small, taught steps, for example: observing and sketching; selecting and testing materials; cutting, shaping, joining and finishing; creating mechanisms or structures; cooking safely; and evaluating how well a product meets the needs of its user. 

Each unit includes opportunities to learn from significant people of interest, such as artists, designers, architects, craft makers or engineers with protected characteristics, enabling pupils to make respectful connections between creative work, identity, culture and representation. 

Assessment for learning and retrieval practice 

Low-stakes checks are used throughout lessons to revisit vocabulary, techniques, materials knowledge, design criteria and understanding of influential creative practitioners. 

Unit-end outcomes may include sketchbook evidence, final artwork, prototypes, made products, annotated designs, evaluations or food technology outcomes. These are used to assess both knowledge and skills, including creativity, technical control, problem-solving, evaluation and improvement. 

Live feedback  

Teachers give immediate, subject-specific feedback during lessons focused on improving creative and technical outcomes, such as refining observational drawing, strengthening structures, joining materials securely, improving finish, adapting designs or using subject vocabulary accurately. 

Where pupils are developing artwork, prototypes or products, teachers use live conferencing to question choices, prompt evaluation and model how to improve work while preserving each pupil’s creative ownership. 

Live feedback is recorded briefly on the class planning grid: who received conferencing, the focus of the feedback, and the next practical, creative or evaluative step required. 

Inclusion and adaptation 

Universal high-quality teaching is the first approach; additional scaffolds such as visual instructions, adapted tools, pre-cut materials, vocabulary banks, peer modelling, sensory exploration and alternative ways to record ideas ensure pupils with SEND and EAL can access the full creative and practical curriculum. 

Curriculum choices actively promote inclusion by selecting significant people of interest from diverse backgrounds and by ensuring pupils encounter positive, respectful representation of protected characteristics within creative, technical and design contexts. 

Monitoring, moderation and CPD 

Subject leaders monitor sketchbooks, design books, practical outcomes, lesson visits and pupil voice to check progression in creative thinking, technical skill, evaluation, safe tool use and pupils’ knowledge of significant artists, designers and engineers. 

Findings inform a concise action plan and targeted CPD, for example improving sketchbook practice, strengthening evaluation in Design Technology, supporting adaptive teaching in practical lessons or developing inclusive choices of significant people of interest. 

Success measures 

Pupils demonstrate increasing confidence, independence and control when using materials, tools, techniques and processes across Art & Design and Design Technology. 

Sketchbooks, design books and practical outcomes show progression in idea generation, experimentation, making, evaluation and improvement from KS1 to KS2. 

Pupil voice shows that children can talk about significant creative practitioners, including people with protected characteristics, and explain how these individuals have influenced art, design, technology, culture and everyday life. 

Impact

At Parkside Community Primary School our Art & Design and Design Technology curriculum ensures pupils leave as curious, creative and capable makers, designers and evaluators. Because our curriculum is skills-led, knowledge-rich and inclusive, pupils learn to think creatively, solve problems, take managed risks and understand the contribution of diverse creative practitioners to the wider world. 

What this looks like in practice and the difference it makes 

Pupils can use appropriate vocabulary to describe their ideas, materials, techniques and design choices, and can make links between their own work and the work of artists, craft makers, designers, architects and engineers. 

By the end of each key stage pupils produce increasingly developed outcomes: exploratory mark-making, simple products and creative responses in KS1; more refined sketchbook work, purposeful prototypes, finished products, informed evaluations and confident technical choices by the end of KS2. 

Classroom retrieval, sketchbook evidence, design tasks and practical outcomes show clear progression in pupils’ ability to generate ideas, experiment, select and use tools, make products, evaluate outcomes and improve their work. 

Live, subject-focused feedback improves pupils’ technical accuracy, creative confidence and ability to evaluate their own choices; pupils use feedback to refine outcomes and understand that improvement is part of the creative and design process. 

Our use of diverse significant people of interest, including people with protected characteristics, helps pupils see themselves and others within creative and technological fields. Pupils learn that art, design and technology can express identity, solve problems, challenge barriers and improve daily life for individuals, communities and society.