The issues that may need to be discussed as part of the school's planning for the visual arts include the following:
The importance of visual arts education in the school curriculum
Curriculum planning begins with acknowledging the central role of visual arts education in the child's holistic development. The creative process children go through in making art, the stages or patterns of development in their art and the importance of visual arts education as a way of knowing that complements other areas of learning should be among the topics discussed.
The emphasis on the creative process
The creative process children go through in making art is emphasised because a significant part of learning in art occurs in their approaches to the task in hand, and this may not be evident in the finished product.
A broad and balanced curriculum
Planning should ensure that all children have a broad developmental programme in drawing, paint and colour and in a three-dimensional medium such as clay, as well as in print-making, construction and work in fabric and fibre. The latter three may in part be replaced by work in other appropriate media, which could include photography, film studies or computer graphics, for example. Theme-based activities that incorporate a number of media (for example drawing, paint and colour, construction) would, where appropriate, be designed to achieve the objectives of a number of strands in the same activity, and the school plan would ensure that the necessary balance between work in two and three-dimensional forms is maintained. School planning should also provide for opportunities to see, to reflect on and to appreciate art forms from our own and other cultures, whether at first hand or in reproduction. A broad and balanced curriculum ensures that children have the experiences needed to develop the concepts and skills that underlie visual expression.
The circumstances and environment of the school, the local traditions in the visual arts and the range of interests and aptitudes of the children will influence the selection of activities and topics. Staff members' interests and levels of expertise in the visual arts would also be important factors in implementing the programme and should be recognised.
Children with differing needs
All children should have equal access to visual arts education. The school plan should guarantee opportunities to participate in purposeful activities that draw on their creative and aesthetic potential. When planning for equal opportunity, which would include equal access for boys and girls, staff members might discuss attitudes to art and the values it holds for them.
The curriculum provides opportunities for children with special educational needs to show capabilities and independent achievement. Their stage of development in art must be acknowledged, regardless of age: their visual imagery is a way of expressing their understanding of the world and they must be allowed to develop through it. Activities and guidelines should therefore be adapted to suit individual needs and should be appropriate to the child's ability and age. Where relevant, activities should be planned in manageable, sequential units, and children should be allowed sufficient time to complete each unit.
Brief, one-session art activities may be more suitable for children with a short attention span, and kinaesthetic, multisensory activities may sometimes be appropriate. With support, interest and praise for their efforts, children will respond enthusiastically.
In any class, children may be working to objectives within a range of levels. Some children with learning difficulties may need to have certain areas of learning broken down into smaller units than those suggested for their level. Others may need greater challenges in the same level of activity. They should be challenged to stretch the possibilities of art activities to the fullest, and sustained exploration of one area may be more satisfactory than a superficial exploration of several.
Planning for linkage and integration
Visual arts activities that involve linkage and integration should be planned for, to give children added opportunities for creativity and inventiveness and to enable them to show strengths and interests which might otherwise remain untapped. Activities that integrate the visual arts with other subjects should be planned to help extend children's understanding of both art and the other subjects, and not merely for illustrative purposes. Integrated visual arts activities should be planned in parallel and should interact with other subjects rather than be subsumed into them.
Time
The centrality of visual arts education in the whole education of children should be considered in planning a visual arts programme. The breadth of the subject and its practical nature should also be taken into consideration when allocating time. Blocked time for project work, for integrated studies or for exploring a particular aspect of the programme in depth may sometimes be an efficient way of managing time.
Display
There should be a school policy on display. As well as using every competing space within the school building, outside agencies such as libraries, hospitals, Garda stations, banks, shops, churches and community centres should be approached occasionally for display space. Such a policy, however, should not put pressure on the teacher and on the children to produce work that would be acceptable to adults, who may bring the wrong criteria to bear on children's work. Exhibiting publicly may not always be appropriate either, as children need psychological space as well as physical space in which to develop.
Developing an assessment policy
Assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning processes in visual arts education: teachers continuously assess children's learning and their own teaching strategies, informally, as they observe, discuss and make judgements on work in progress and on completed work. As a way of looking at teacher and pupil performance, assessment makes an important contribution to the overall evaluation of the art programme's effectiveness. It is important to wholeschool planning and to the development of agreed approaches to art in the primary school.
Assessment tools
It is important that teachers approach assessment in art with confidence and with a common understanding of what it entails. It should include
- teacher observation
- teacher-designed tasks
- work samples, portfolios and projects
- curriculum profiles.
Teacher observation
In the process of making and responding to art, the child may demonstrate qualities of imagination, inventiveness and involvement which can be observed at the time but may not be evident in a finished piece of work, or may not be recalled easily.
Areas for assessment would include:
- the child's ability to choose and use materials, tools and media for a particular task or project, effectively and with originality
- the child's expressive use of visual media in compositions and in developing form
- the quality of the child's responses to art works, and his/her ability to make connections between his/her own work and the work of others
- the child's approach to and level of involvement with a task
- the child's contribution to group activity.
Teacher-designed tasks
The teacher may occasionally design specific visual arts activities to assess particular aspects of development in art. These would cover the range of activities in two- and three-dimensional media that the children engage in at different stages of development.
Work samples, portfolios and projects
A representative sample of work done in the range of two-dimensional media over a period and chosen in consultation with the child would comprise a portfolio. Photographs or videos of work done in three-dimensional media, including project work, could also be included as a record of achievement. Portfolios should be kept as a record of children's creative and aesthetic development throughout their primary years.
Curriculum profiles
This form of assessment would give the teacher, the child and parents specific information about the individual child's needs and achievements in visual arts education. They are records of achievement based on curriculum objectives, and would form part of school planning.
Building a common understanding of assessment
Assessment in art should show how children are learning to perceive, explore, respond to and express their world through the curriculum strands. Criteria for assessment based on artistic values should be understood and agreed among staff members and should be as objective as possible. They should identify what is significant and of value in the child's visual expression and in his/her responses to art works and identify any problems he/she may be experiencing. Criteria for assessment should be designed to identify both problems and potential.
The manageability of assessment
As assessment procedures are intended to provide the teacher with useful information on pupil progress, they should be kept to manageable proportions. A brief check-list of what to look out for when observing children at work should be compiled, written comments should be succinct and portfolios easily stored. Time given to assessment should be planned as an integral part of the lesson and should involve manageable administration work for the teacher.