The school’s commitment to the arts to ensure a full and rounded education for all pupils
At Cotmanhay Junior School, the staff and governors are committed to providing pupils with as many arts experiences in the form of music, art and design, dance and drama as possible.
Arts education is made available to all pupils, irrespective of their age, ability, gender, cultural or ethnic backgrounds and in accordance with the schoo l’s Equal Opportunities
Policy.
Arts practitioners, musicians, theatre groups and role play specialists regularly visit the school to work the pupils and staff. As a school, we have built several long lasting partnerships with Arts companies such as Unbeatable Energy, Pintsize Productions and
West End in Schools. We are dedicated to building a community of Arts practitioners around the school for our children to work with. Furthermore, the school is committed to forming partnerships with other schools to develop its arts provision and both to learn from, and to support, other schools.
Curriculum planning ensures a breadth and range of creative opportunities. The school’s long term planning is context free enabling year group teachers to plan together to maximise their creativity in medium term planning which encourages enthusiasm and fun for both teachers and pupils. The arts have a high profile and feature across the curriculum; Drama plays an integral role in our daily English lessons, and Art, Music, and Dance are used as a stimulus for or extension of learning across all subjects.
A range of out of hours learning provision for the arts caters for pupils from Year 3 to Year 6.
Key Aims and Objectives
The aims and objectives of our arts policy and of our arts provision are to:-

Provide all pupils with high quality, practical arts lessons and experiences.

To engage wherever possible with creative practitioners to develop the skills of both staff and pupils.

Provide pupils with experience of art forms from a range of cultures to develop specific skills, knowledge, understanding and appreciation.
 Develop pupil’s self-esteem, perseverance, co-operation and confidence through the arts.

Develop greater understanding of the ways in which the arts contribute to society, to their own community and to the lives of young people within that community.

To instil a love of learning in the children and provide them with an array of creative skills with which they can expand their learning both at school and independently.

The range of experiences offered
Music
All pupils experience music in class with their class teachers as well as regular singing sessions in their Art classes. Pupils in Years 4 and 5 also work for a series of weeks with an external music practitioner during the year. Music lessons include performing, singing, listening, composing, making music and appreciation of music.
An extensive range of musical instruments are used to support and enhance these lessons; a variety of instruments are centrally stored to which every class has access. Through our work with Music Partnership, our children also receive the opportunity to take an instrument home to learn.
Music fea tures strongly in the school’s seasonal assemblies and in the class assemblies performed twice yearly to parents and pupils by each class .
Music provision is enhanced by the provision of a weekly after school choir and a weekly lunchtime recorder club.
Art and Design
Our Art and Design work is led by an in school Arts specialist who provides a minimum of 2 hours of Art lessons to each class every week. Our specialist plans experiences for pupils to explore all elements of Art and Design in appropriate contexts. They endeavour to enable pupils to develop skills which will allow them to give expression to their feelings and experiences through a variety of medium. Appreciation of artists
’ work is also covered.
Furthermore, class teachers use Art and Design as in integral tool in their planning of our core and creative curriculum work. Children are encouraged to explore social, moral, spiritual and cultural aspects of their work through the medium of art on a regular basis.
Art and design provision is enhanced by a weekly lunchtime and after school art club.
Dance
Teachers plan units of work to address the dance strand of the National Curriculum’s
Programme of Study for PE. A dance specialist visits each class for a specialist dance session once every year. We also hold an annual showcase of our dancing talents at our school and invite other schools to come and watch and share their work.
Dance features in the school’s seasonal and class assemblies performed to parents and pupils. Dance provision is enhanced by a weekly after school dance club.

Drama
Children are given a range of opportunities to express themselves through different drama activities, often linked to topic work, literacy work and personal and social development work.
Throughout the school, drama is used to build children’s confidence and to develop their social skills, for example: through circle time drama activities; as a teaching approach for exploring cross-curricular subjects, eg. the re-enactment of historical events; and through class assemblies and role play activities. Visiting theatre groups enable children to experience professional drama.
Children are encouraged to comment constructively upon drama they have watched or participated in.
Our Drama provision is enhanced by a weekly after school Drama club.
Expertise of staff and commitment to further training
All teachers are committed to developing and promoting opportunities for the arts. Teachers receive support and professional development opportunities from whole school INSET, individual/group courses and support in planning, teaching and assessment from subject leaders. Whole school performance management objectives for teachers have been used to raise the profile and quality of arts provision across the school.
Our Arts teacher compiles high quality portfolios for each year group which showcase the breadth and depth of arts provision at Cotmanhay Junior School. These include photographs of children undertaking activities and displays of children’s work, together with examples of children’s work.
When planning for the arts, teachers plan together in year groups, thereby maximising ideas and creativity. Teachers identify the learning objectives to be addressed from the Whole
School Curriculum Map and complete medium term plans which identify the context and activities to achieve these objectives. Wherever possible teachers identify links between different subjects. A copy of all planning is given to the relevant subject leader who provides feedback.
Monitoring & Evaluation
This policy will be monitored and reviewed on a biannual basis. In addition, the School
Improvement Plan specifically identifies those responsible for the implementation, and evaluation of specific Arts initiatives and developments.
Subject leaders also evaluate planning and work throughout the school on a termly basis and provide feedback to all teachers.

The headteacher ensures governors are aware of the strengths and areas for development regarding the school’s arts provision through annual reports.
Resources
Each year, the governors will also commit par t of the school’s delegated budget to financing the employment of creative practitioners to develop and enhance our arts provision.
Consumable materials to support the delivery of arts curriculum are purchased by the Senior
Leadership Team and relevant subject leaders and are kept in a central store and in the specialist Arts teacher’s classroom.
Minimum time given to arts experiences in the formal curriculum (excluding out of hours provision)
Art / Design – 2 hours per week
Music – 20 hours per year
Dance – 20 hours per year
Drama
– 20 hours per year
Extra time is given to productions, musical events, class assemblies, etc.