Art, design and creativity are integral to the delivery and ethos of our LEAP curriculum. Children are introduced to a wide range of artists, techniques and rich experiences, which enable them to develop their knowledge and skills progressively throughout their time with LEAP. 

Our art curriculum introduces children to the artists of the past and present, who have had a profound impact on current arts and artistic ways of thinking. These artists are from a variety of art movements and allow the children to explore new vocabulary, styles of working and a knowledge of art history. Our creative lessons mean that children develop their observation, line-work and artistic skills from an early age in painting, drawing, mixed-media and printmaking. This is developed as they go through the school, leaving us in Year 6 as confident, knowledgeable and well-rounded artists.

National Curriculum

Art and Design lessons are in line with the National Curriculum objectives (see link below) and ensure a balanced programme of progression across the year, exposing the children to a wide range of art from different periods, cultures and locations.

Link to National Curriculum (England) Art and Design

Curriculum overview

• Art is taught  weekly to ensure skills and techniques are revisited and developed. Each half term we focus on a different art movement or period including baroque, Impressionism and Surrealism.  We look at a range of artists from the 'Great Masters' such as Da Vinci and Rembrandt to contemporary artists such as Sonia Boyce and Kehinde Wiley.
• Each year, we work in partnership with the National Gallery’s Take One Picture and have developed our own version to incorporate our Empowerment Curriculum by including a second picture  by a British diverse artist - Take Two Pictures.  
• Progression and skills are evident from EYFS to Year 6, and is recorded in sketchbooks and displays. Art lessons are both knowledge and skill based to re-inforce the learning of knowledge about both great makers and creators of the past.

You can find a PDF of Mandeville's Art Curriculum overview at the bottom of this page.

Cultural Capital

We are fortunate to live in a thriving international art capital and at LEAP we take full advantage of this!  We have links to outside institutions and galleries include: The National Gallery: Take One Picture, The Estorick Collection, The Barbican, The Guildhall Art Gallery, The Cell Gallery, Artburst, The Tate, Hackney Music Festival etc.

Special Projects

Change Climate Change with photojournalist Gideon Mendel

The celebrated Hackney photographer Gideon Mendel collaborated with a class of Year 4 Mandeville’s children on an art project looking at the global climate emergency through their eyes. The project resulted in a short film titled Change Climate Change, which was selected by Greenpeace to be shown at the UN’s regional platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Budva, Montenegro on 7 November 2024 where it was well received by world leaders. The film provides a unique perspective on our global climate emergency from the viewpoint of the generation who will be most affected. Using Mendel’s photographic portrait series (Submerged Portraits and Portraits in Ashes) which were shown in an exhibition at the Photographers Gallery as the starting point, the children from Mandeville embarked on an intensive five-week workshop where they developed their understanding of global warming through photography, writing and drawing. You can find out more on the link below.

 

iDesign with Art Hoppers

We worked closely with Art Hoppers to create new projects for our school environment, including a stunning permanent light installation in our dining hall. See the iDesign page to the left for more information about our work with Arthoppers.

 

Animation

Years 2 – 6 worked together on an animation project in collaboration with ‘A Little Learning’.  You can watch their short animation and find out more information about this exciting project on the link below.

 

Rich, Relevant and Representative: The LEAP Empowerment Curriculum

We have developed an art curriculum that is rich, relevant and representative by exposing the children to a range of artists from ethnic minorities and how they have shaped and contributed to art history.  Our holistic approach is designed to develop children’s understanding of the multitude of different people and cultures in our world.  Children will look at influences from around the world, such as the importance of pattern in Islamic art and the influence of African masks in the paintings of Picasso and Modigliani. 

Fundamental British Values

At LEAP, we believe in threading Fundamental British Values throughout our curriculum.  In art, we are particularly focused on Individual Liberty and every child’s individual right to express themselves freely and right to have an opinion.  We teach this through discussion and learning around artists and creatives globally and of the present and the past.  

Awards

We are delighted to announce that in June 2021 Mandeville were awarded Silver Artsmark.

Art at Home

Observational drawing is one of the hardest skills we can learn in drawing and painting, and it takes practice. It is about using your eyes to follow the shapes and angles in nature/of an object, using what you can actually see, rather than what you know is there. Going to museums, galleries, local parks you can find a huge variety of objects you can practice drawing using your observational skills. All you need is a paper, pencil and your eyes.

Here is a list of museums and galleries which are free to get into, and who have a lot of very interesting artefacts and artworks you can draw.

• Tate Modern and Tate Britain
• Guildhall Art Gallery
• British Museum
• Natural history Museum
• The Young V&A
• The V&A East Storehouse and Museum