Arts Education at Creative Primary School
Foreword
Continuing with the happy and liberal art programme at our kindergarten, the mission of Creative Primary School’s art curriculum is to integrate the essence of our local foundation level art curriculum and the IB Primary Years Programme. Complimented by our rich and diverse programme of activities, primary students are able to freely immerse themselves in the extensive and vibrant world of art offered by our Primary School’s art programme. Our objective is to foster students’ enthusiasm in learning, effectiveness in communication and be ready to take up responsibility and courageous in creating and innovating. Our curriculum is also affiliated and linked with the curriculum approaches of our Kindergarten and Secondary School, thus providing a coherent arts education for students from 3 to 18 years old while laying a solid foundation for future learning and personal development.
Beauty & Art is Becoming a Form of Competitiveness
“Every Child Is An Artist” - Pablo Picasso
We strongly believe that every child is born with a natural love of beauty and has the potential to create beauty too. More exposure to art allows children to feel for what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful in life. Through arts education they also learn to know themselves, the world around them, and appreciate good things in life and learn to be grateful. Arts education can also help to build a child’s positive character, promote all-around development and bring them countless benefits. Nowadays, beauty and art have become a form of competitiveness in our modern society.
Modern development has entered into an era of Artificial Intelligence. Human rationality (mathematics & logic) has begun to be replaced by machines, but human sensibility (art) would not be easy to replace. In other words, people with artistic aptitude, aesthetic sense, imaginative and innovative skills will become important human qualities that is much needed in the future development of human society.
So, how do we open the door to engage children’s interest in the world of art? How do we cultivate their insight and foresight in the development of art and the world? How can we help them develop their competitiveness in tomorrow’s world? These are the key development indicators of arts education in our primary school.
Key Features of Our Visual Arts Education
Our visual art programme is an integration of the local foundation level art curriculum and of the IB Primary Years Programme. The purpose is to provide students with an art learning environment that allows them to develop skills in communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and other subject-related skills through appropriate learning activities and strategies.
Systematic Curriculum Design
When designing our art curriculum, we take reference to both the “Visual Arts Curriculum Guide” of the Education Bureau and the “Scope and Sequence in Visual Arts” of the IB PYP. On one hand, students learn and master a variety of fundamental artistic skills and acquire basic knowledge in art. On the other hand, we use the “Visual Art Inquiry Model” of the IB PYP to teach students how to conduct inquiry-based learning through a variety of activities, allowing children to grasp and consolidate the knowledge and skills they have been learning.
We divide the Primary 1 to Primary 6 levels into three main learning stages. Using a progressive spiralling mode of teaching and learning, children are led through each stage of the artistic development process:
Stage 1 (P.1/ P.2)
Understanding art appreciation, acquiring knowledge and developing skills, imitating artwork and experimenting art creation
Stage 2 (P.3/P.4)
Further acquisition of knowledge and skills, further learn ways to create art; express feelings through art and how to appraise artwork
Stage 3 (P.5/P.6)
Apply knowledge and skills learnt when creating art; master techniques and expression in art creation; using the language of art to evaluate art.
Connect UOI Trans-disciplinary Themes • Widen International Outlook
Every child is special and unique. We believe that when children learn and grow in an atmosphere of acceptance, respect and love, they will become confident, happy, understand their own uniqueness and become better people. Based on this idea, we respect the diversity in personalities and abilities of children and understand differences in their needs and progress of learning. We flexibly deploy different ways to suit individual situations and needs when teaching our children. We also let students take charge of their own learning in accordance with their own abilities, experiences and interests, ensuring that each of their artworks exhibits both character and individuality.
Embrace Differences
We have a progressive programme where students are able to demonstrate their
understanding at increasing levels of sophistication and independence. In the junior years, a teacher-led approach is most common. Projects are often technique-focused, where the teacher will introduce a particular skill or media such as Chinese Ink painting, a set theme like portraiture and an artist to respond to.
As the student progresses through the school, they begin to make more decisions, such as selecting their own artists or media. By the senior years, the approach becomes student-led, with individual students choosing their own themes and investigations, selecting techniques. The teacher takes the role of facilitator, with the aforementioned creative cycle guiding the student.
Through this progression, the students learn to become independent learners, confident and experimental art-makers, and find their own voice as an artist.
Diverse Learning Resources
We provide students with abundance of learning resources including the use information technology to assist teaching. We have a designated visual arts studio and we provide a variety of art-related reference books, samples of artwork, art equipment, and materials etc. to meet children's learning needs. In addition, we share resources with our kindergarten and secondary school, including human resources, venues and equipment etc. to support and facilitate our art programmes effectively.
Variety of Display and Exhibiting Platforms
We make use of many areas in our primary school campus for displaying of children's works permanently throughout the year and exhibiting arts by children of different ages. In addition, children are shown masterpieces by renowned artists electronically through the internet every week. By providing a wide variety of display platforms for our students, we can not only affirm their learning outcomes and achievements but can also allow them to mutually appreciate and learn from each other’s work. This all helps stimulate their creative ideas and will encourage students to continue creating throughout their lives.
International Elite Artist Training Programme
In order to broaden children's artistic horizons, we not only let them learn and experience a variety of contemporary art creation and expression methods through classroom teaching, but also organize different activities such as our CPS Art Fair, Creative Continuum Art Exhibition, visit art exhibitions, participate in various art competitions, etc. We also organise after-school activities, such as art classes and creative ceramic classes etc. to foster students who have potential in the field of art and are passionate about learning more about art. We are convinced that the intentionality and extra efforts we make can help to unleash their potential and provide them space for exerting their best in their art creativity.
Shaping Their Future
Visual arts education of Creative Primary School focuses on enabling students to observe, learn and appreciate the vast and diverse world of art. Through experiencing and learning students in our art programme are also led to gain a deeper understanding of the developmental direction of the modern world. In this way, we inspire and enable all students to open their eyes, minds and hearts to the beauty of the world around them while laying a firm foundation for further studies and careers in the art discipline for those who choose to do so.