At Hollywood Primary School, we view the Arts as opportunities for pupils to be creative and imaginative. This is through drama, dance, music and visual art.

Through the arts, we give children a range of experiences to captivate and motivate them, allowing them to creatively explore new ideas. Children with a range of abilities and needs have the opportunity to creatively express their ideas and emotions and in turn progress both personally and academically.

Art and design is not just a subject to learn, but an activity that you can practise: with your hands, your eyes, your whole personality.

Quentin Blake, Illustrator and Children’s Laureate.

At Hollywood, we have been accepted to work towards gaining out Artsmark. We believe every child should have the opportunity to create, compose, and perform, as well as to visit, experience, participate in and review extraordinary work. Artsmark can help unlock the potential of children and young people, help to develop character and talent, and increase their knowledge and understanding. That’s why Artsmark was created: to bring this ambition to life in every classroom. This award ensures our commitment to ‘The Arts’ and our vision is to embed this culture firmly within our curriculum.

Shakespeare Week

Please follow the download link below to read our newsletter all about our amazing Shakespeare Week in school!

Curriculum Statement – The Arts

Intent

At Hollywood, we aim to cultivate creative children who are inspired through our delivery of the creative arts. Our high-quality art curriculum and cross curricular links provide a real purpose to our children’s creative projects. This is designed to develop individuality in their creations. It is imperative to us that our children are able to explore their creativity through a range of materials.

Hollywood encourages creativity from the very beginning of children’s schooling experience. This is done through Expressive Arts and Design in EYFS. The EYFS has a child initiated approach which allows EAD to flourish throughout the different areas in the room.

Implementation

When delivering a creative curriculum at Hollywood there is a real focus on teaching the children new skills and techniques. To ensure art lessons provide the children with a real sense of purpose, sessions and activities relate directly to the class topic. These cross-curricular links help immerse the children in their art and design sessions and ensure they are memorable. An example of this is Year 3 creating observational drawings of fossils during their rocks, soils and plants topic.

We intend for the children at Hollywood to receive a balanced and varied exposure to the creative arts. We ensure that a variety of materials are incorporated in art lessons with clear progression of skills throughout each year group. This includes the use of oil pastels, print blocks, chalk, clay, water paints, acrylic paints and more. This range ensures children have an open and broad approach to what art can encompass.

As well as this our children have ample opportunity to express their creativity by taking part in our Shakespeare arts week where the children progress each year by learning a play written from Shakespeare and performing in shows throughout the year. This also includes Christmas nativity productions, Christmas carol services, Remembrance occasion, Easter performances and a year 6 end of year production.

Throughout the school our children cover a range of artists and musicians, and in Key Stage 2, they have the opportunity to research artists and create a fact file. We provide our children with the opportunity to be creative both in and out of the classroom; such as at our after school dance clubs.

Impact

The creative arts are valued at our school. Our children are confident with using a range of resources to create artwork and display a sense of pride over their creations. This can be demonstrated through the fantastic and engaging classroom displays which showcase brilliant work. Each class partakes in a Shakespeare performance which is something they are very proud of and is spoken about and referred to throughout the year.

They build on the skills associated with drama and prose through each year leaving Hollywood ready for senior school with six Shakespeare plays under the belt. As well as this classes produce a performance at Easter and year 6 create an end-of-year production. Children are confident to talk about their work in the arts, reflect and adapt it.

The Arts Coordinator

The Arts at Hollywood is led and managed by Mrs E. Brown.

Downloads

• Artsmark Statement of Commitment
• Shakespeare week newsletter
• Ten ways ‘The Arts’ at Hollywood can improve our pupils!
• Principles and practice for an evidence-led curriculum, teaching and learning
• Art and Design Policy 2022
• Music Policy 2022