Art and design at key stage 3

The following guidance may be helpful for teachers who want to review or create their own scheme of work.

Constructing a scheme of work for art and design

• the aims, purposes and priorities of the school;
• agreed time allocations for art and design in each year;
• the aims and purposes of art and design at key stage 3, and the subject's contribution to the whole curriculum;
• how content may best be balanced and sequenced, eg balance of art, craft and design, and of individual and collaborative work;
• how to check pupils' progress;
• the practicalities of organising the teaching of art and design, eg activities which require more sustained time; opportunities for visits to museums, galleries and sites during the school year;
• links with other curriculum areas;
• ways in which pupils make progress in learning art and design.

Evaluating art and design schemes of work and units

• provide long- and medium-term plans that are clearly linked to the national curriculum programme of study and level descriptions?
• provide a secure basis from which teachers can plan lessons to meet the needs of all pupils in the class?
• show how ideas and skills are built up in an organised, systematic and rigorous way based on learning that has already taken place?
• show links between the areas of the art and design curriculum including practical skills and the skills of critical evaluation?
• link teaching activities to the learning they are intended to promote?
• identify what pupils are expected to learn, both within a unit and by the end of a specified period, and how pupils' learning might be assessed?
• provide opportunities for the development of literacy, mathematics and ICT and, where appropriate, links to other subjects?
• give indications of the time needed to teach each unit?

Evaluating the extent to which a scheme of work encourages progression in pupils' learning in art and design

• What is known about what pupils have already achieved when they enter the key stage and how does this affect the pitch of the early units?
• Which ideas and skills in art and design depend on secure foundation of practical experience?
• How can units be sequenced so that earlier work lays the foundations for later work?
• Are there opportunities for revisiting and reinforcing the ideas pupils need to understand and which some will find difficult?
• When ideas are revisited or reinforced is it in a different context or using different activities?
• How are pupils who have some competence or expertise beyond the levels expected in particular years challenged?
• How far do the school's scheme of work and units provide opportunities for pupils, as they move through key stage 3, to progress:

from	to
exploring ideas and collecting visual and other information for their work	exploring ideas for different purposes and audiences, selecting and using relevant visual and other information to help them develop their ideas
investigating visual and tactile qualities in materials and processes	investigating, combining and manipulating materials and processes, combining and organising visual and tactile qualities and matching these to ideas and intentions
commenting on similarities and differences between their own and others' work and adapting and improving their own work	comparing, commenting on and critically evaluating ideas, methods and approaches used in their own and others' work, relating these to the context in which the work was made, and adapting and refining their own work to realise their intentions