Art and Design
Subject Leader: Lisa Clarke
Link Governor: Mike Leigh
At Clapham art plays an integral part of our thematic approach to teaching and we wholeheartedly agree with Albert Einstein who said, “Every child is an artist.” As a school we believe all aspects of creative learning play a crucial role in our community’s wellbeing and support the children’s cultural, social, aesthetic and physical development.
To this end we have been awarded Artsmark Platinum for making the arts come alive in our school. This is the creative quality standard for schools, accredited by Arts Council England. We are extremely proud to be one of the few one form entry primary schools in the country to be awarded this level which recognises our commitment to providing the children with quality arts based experiences far beyond those based at school.
Clapham’s child led Arts Committee, in collaboration with our external partners, recently organised our second community based arts festival (SPLAT2), held in Jephson Gardens. The festival saw over 3000 visitors from all over the country and is currently the only arts based festival of its kind in the country!
From Nursery to Year 6, our children are given opportunities to work alongside professional artists in our dedicated creative area, ‘The Mess’, which stands for make, explore, solve and sketch, visit art galleries and places of local interest developing their skills and understanding of the process involved in producing creative outcomes.
The Arts Committee is looking forward to welcoming one of our school governors back into school to undertake another creative project with us all! We have chosen famous artists to learn about and we will create representations in their style which will be displayed around the environment. We were so proud to have included painting, dancing and dt in our Global Goals Day as we ‘travelled’ around the world being immersed in different cultures and having a go at lots of new activities. These enhancements to our already creative curriculum provide us with even more new, exciting and challenging experiences.
