At St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Personal, Social, Health, and Economic (PSHE) education is embedded within our

overarching curriculum that prepares our children for many different aspects of their lives.  

Our overall goal is to help our children to become well-rounded individuals with strong character, who will eventually go out into the world of adults and be actively and positively involved in society.   In order to do this, we are striving to create a conducive environment around the school and this year we have created our own specific Personal Development Curriculum that is entwined with our academic curriculum.

Our curriculum aims to provide engagement and enrichment and through this, we aim for all children to have equal opportunities to thrive together.  

What does Art look like at St. Mary's?

Our Art curriculum develops creativity and inspires children. Through challenges, we seek to equip our children with the knowledge and skills to explore and engage within a range of materials in order to experiment, design and create their own work. 

Our curriculum aims to enable the children to reach and exceed their potential at St Mary's Catholic Primary School. 

We celebrate children's achievements and showcase the skills and progress they have made when displaying and sharing the work they create. 

Academic year 2024 - 2025

Bodhran Class

We used our knowledge of colour to design and create plates in the style of Clarice Cliff.

Art in Accordion Class...

The children really enjoyed our transient art lessons and made some fantastic representations.

Art in Harp Class

We have been looking at shading and tinting. We made our own composition pictures.

Art in Bodhran Class

We have learnt about different lines including horizontal, vertical, zig zag, wavy, broken, diagonal and cross hatched. We have used different lines with a variety of felt tips, wax crayons, chalk, pencils and even string to create different effects with lines.

Accordian Class

Art in Harp Class 

Autumn term: Seeing and drawing like an artist. Children have been learning how the use of shapes, shading, and texture in art, enhances their drawing skills. It emphasises developing a sense of light and dark, using frottage for texture, and experimenting with different tools to create expressive and abstract art. They have all enjoyed being creative.

Art in Saxophone class

Meeting a local artist 

We were lucky enough to meet a local artist this week!  They are creating a mural on Mount Street and they took time out of their day to talk to us about the Big Heart Project.  This art work linked nicely with a mini debate in class as to whether mural art/street art is graffiti or art.

Art - Making my Voice Heard

In Art, our topic is making our voice heard.  In particular, we've been looking at Mayan Art work.   We've been experimenting with different textures using paint and other materials, we've used charcoal and we've also connected with our spirit character.

Academic year 2023 - 2024

Art Potter Class

Our Art topic this term is prehistoric paintings, we have been learning about why paintings are prehistoric and what makes them prehistoric. We have started this topic by exploring prehistoric art and identifying features. We have also started to create our own prehistoric art using animals as a key focus. We collected natural products to produce pigments to make our own prehistoric palette.

In Robinson Class we have been exploring how our drawings can be developed by combining different materials for effect. We can identify the features of a self portrait and have developed ideas towards an outcome by experimenting with a range of materials and techniques.

Using all of these skills we have created our own mixed media self-portraits!

Art - Potter Class

During our art lessons we have been looking at Ancient Egypt. We have been making our own paper in the style of the Ancient Egyptians, staining paper, using the Egyptian patterns and drawing and painting in the style of an ancient civilisation.

Art 

We have studies Maya Art throughout our topic where we've 'made our voice heard' and used different shading, tones and techniques.  We've als learnt how to do chiaroscuro.

Ancient Greek Pottery Painting 

Today, we painted our Ancient Pottery in orange and black, colours used to on the original Ancient pottery.

Ancient Greek pottery

Sendak class harnessed their pottery skills this morning to create a pot or bowl with an Ancient Greek theme. The aim was to use intricate patterns and markings to represent an aspect of Ancient Greek life that we have explored earlier in the topic. The designs are outstanding and we can't wait to show off the painted, finished pieces later next week.  

Shelly Woods Class - Ancient Greek Pottery Painting

Marking making in Year 1 using Chunky Chalk!

Woods Class Enrichment & Enhancement Week

During our enrichment and enhancement week, we have focused on art.  We have particularly focused on Typography.  This was a relatively new concept to many of us so we firstly began by researching what it was and looking carefully at some examples. We then created some of our own examples and extended this to creating our own name using typography and graffiti style online.  After creating our own style of typography, we added this into our final piece.  Take a look at some of our work and see how much fun we had!

Shackleton Art 

During the next few art sessions, we are going to cover the following objectives…

• Develop a painting from a drawing.
• Research, discuss and compare a range of work by different artists – discuss their style and how they differ from each other.  
• Carry out preliminary studies, trying out different media and materials and mixing appropriate colours. 
• Explore the roles and purposes of artists, craftspeople and designers working in different times and cultures

Pier Mondrian

As part of our Painting unit of work this half term, Year 1 have been looking at the colour wheel, with particular attention to primary colours. We were introduced to the work of abstract artist, Pier Mondrian and even had a go at creating our own! What do you think?

Black History Month 2021

Year 1 created some beautiful artwork today inspired by famous black artist, Frank Bowling. Just look art their fabulous creations using the 'dripping' method, that he is so famous for!

For Autumn term 2021, all classes are focusing on drawing. From mark making in EYFS to Banksy inspired Art in Year 6! All children have been given their own Art Sketchbook that will follow them throughout their journey at St. Mary's to showcase their progression.

Year 6 / Ernest Shackleton Class

My Lovely Day Art Project - EYFS

Drawing is one of the many languages which children use to 'talk' about their world, both to themselves and other. Through drawing, children can express actions, emotion, ideas or experiences. 

'Everything starts from a dot' - Kadinsky

Royal Mail Heroes Stamp Design Competition

For more than 50 years Royal Mail’s Special Stamp programme has commemorated British history and achievement. Stamps have also been issued to honour the achievements of many British people. Often, the people who appear on stamps are already famous. They include scientists and explorers, writers, artists, musicians, athletes, and Prime Ministers

Take a look at our pandemic heroes!